


Thunderdome

by theredhoodie



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies), The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Bellarke side ship, F/F, F/M, Lots of stuff is going on and there's more character stuff than plot, Murven centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-06-27 00:44:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 28,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15674595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredhoodie/pseuds/theredhoodie
Summary: It's the height of the Kaiju War, and one of two American PPDC stations is filled with an intricate number of Rangers and tech crew. Clarke Griffin and her co-pilot, Bellamy Blake, have their own battles to fight in and out of their Jaeger, and Head Technician Raven Reyes is having feelings for Ranger John Murphy except he's her best friend's ex and she can't do that.AKA in which the PPDC is as dramatic as a high school soap opera.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I love Pacific Rim so much and I feel like I can make an AU with it and any other set of characters. This started out being Bellarke centric with Murven on the side but then it swapped. 
> 
> I think I'll be writing a sequel with more action and angst!
> 
> Lightly edited by me so sorry for mistakes!

The din of the Thunderdome hanger softened by the time you got closer to the living quarters. The large cafeteria, the numerous bunks lining the halls like a college dorm, the communal showers, and the training rooms were all on the other side of the facility as the hangers, housing twenty shiny Jaegers.

The last, Arken Sky, was undergoing repairs after an eleven hour Drift and fight with a speedy and snakelike level two Kaiju named Ragnarok. Its pilots had been debriefed, checked by a physician and were quietly and separately making their ways back to their bunks.

Clarke Griffin's blonde hair was shorn short, hovering between her chin and her shoulders, and she walked through the halls with her shoulders squared and her head high, even though she was exhausted. Turning the corner to the offshoot that housed her bunk, a form from the adjacent hall came at her quickly.

A calloused hand grabbed her wrist and caused her to turn with a tiny gasp. In a millisecond, she took in the freckled skin, the dark hair, the deep dark eyes, and easily folded herself against the chest of her co-pilot. His hands reached for her face, pulling her lips to his hastily as if they were kids at a high school dance instead of decorated officers of the PPDC.

"What are you doing?" Clarke laughed, pulling away. There were a few people milling about in the halls, but no one they had to worry about.

"I can't get you out of my head," Bellamy replied with a grin, kissing her jaw.

Clarke rolled her eyes. "It's just the Drift," she said, trying to find a logical reason for them to stop and get some rest, as ordered by Dr. Griffin, aka Clarke's mother.

Bellamy shook his head, his face nestled in the curve of her neck and shoulder. "Not only."

The Drift was the headspace shared between two Jaeger pilots. It came after the neural handshake: the procedure that linked the minds of Jaeger pilots so they could operate such a massive machine without frying their brains. The Drift was the shared space between the brains, often swirling with emotions and memories, but also where their minds became  _one_. With it, they could fight effortlessly without having to speak their intentions out loud.

Everyone felt Drift side effects, like taking on phrases or habits of your co-pilot, feeling phantom Jaeger limbs while not on a Conn-Pod, and, if you shared a neural handshake for a very long time, the oddest sensation of not knowing where your mind ended and the other person's began.

Bellamy's memories of helping his mother give birth to his sister amidst a Kaiju attack mixed with Clarke at her father's funeral seven years ago. Clarke's medical jargon was mixed with Bellamy's classic epics that he'd begun memorizing at age twelve. And many, many more.

Clarke made an effort to step back further, her hands lightly resting on Bellamy's hips. "We really should rest. We have plenty of time," she reminded him.

Clarke had full faith in humanity to fight off the monsters coming up from the depths of the ocean and with a hanger full of Jaegers and Rangers, she and Bellamy could relax before their next deployment.

"Fine," Bellamy finally caved, squeezing her shoulders before taking a step back. "Are we still going to that party tonight?"

They'd deployed at 22:00 hours, and it was now almost 14:00. If they slept now, they'd have a couple hours of shut-eye before the night got started.

"Raven wouldn't let us miss it," Clarke said. She bounced forward on her toes and gave Bellamy one last, lingering kiss before walking away, back down the hall toward her room. It took no time at all for her to kick off her boots, unstrap her bra and crawl into bed. It took even less time for her to fall asleep, her dreams a muddled mix of reality and fantasy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raven Reyes leaned against the bar, bare arms crossed, lips pursed disapprovingly. Clarke and Bellamy were  _late_ , and she'd already been hit on by five different guys. Even though she was wearing her best bitch face, they saw her womanly shape and lost half their brain cells. The brace on her leg, which had started out huge and clunky eight years ago, had been slimmed down thanks to Jaeger tech, but was still necessary and visible.

She didn't give two shits about it, and wore a dress that reached mid thigh and showed off her chest. She  _was_  here to get gawked at, but not until her friends arrived.

"Still not here?" Emori Frikdreina, Raven's right hand woman when it came to the upkeep and repairs of several Jaegers at the Thunderdome, came up with two drinks. Emori's face was marked with tattoos from her time as an orthodox BuenaKai, and she wore a glove and sleeve on her left arm. Like Raven, she didn't give a shit what people thought of her appearance, but her deformed hand made people uncomfortable and since tonight was about  _fun_ , Emori had covered up.

"No," Raven said, frowning and taking the drink Emori offered.

Emori took a long sip of her daiquiri through the clear straw. Both young women searched the crowds and—

"Finally!" Raven exclaimed, laying her dark eyes on Clarke and Bellamy. Clarke's dress was simple and black, and Bellamy wore half of his military suit—the pants and shoes and shirt—and of course they looked brilliant together.

As Clarke and Bellamy apologized for being late, they, Raven and Emori traded hugs and Bellamy leaned toward the bar to get some more drinks.

Twenty minutes later, the four of them were sitting at a circular booth around the outskirts of the club dancefloor.

"To Arken Sky!" Raven toasted, lifting her second drink into the air.

"Bellamy and Clarke!" Emori added before they all tinked glasses and drank heartily.

"How does it feel to save the world  _again_?" Raven asked, eyeing the two Rangers.

"It feels good," Bellamy said, sitting back and putting his arm around Clarke's shoulders.

Clarke tilted her head to the side. "It does feel good. But we all know there'll be another Kaiju and another. But we can at least celebrate that this one didn't reach any cities before we were able to take it down."

"Just don't ask us to watch  _Anaconda_  anytime soon," Bellamy said with a little mock shiver.

Emori chuckled and raised her glass to her lips as she glanced out toward the crowd. Her facial expression instantly fell. "Speaking of snakes," she muttered, elbowing Raven.

The Head Technician followed Emori's gaze. Walking through the crowd was one John Murphy. Once a Jaeger pilot, he had been benched after disobeying orders and letting a Kaiju reach Guadalajara three years ago.

He was also Emori's ex.

Raven made a disgruntled scoff in the back of her throat, paired with a roll of her eyes. "What is he doing here?" Across the booth, Clarke glanced at Bellamy. Raven narrowed her eyes at the pilots. "What did you do?"

"I...I invited him," Clarke confessed, Bellamy's honesty bleeding through their Drift. "I'm sorry! I forgot."

Before any arguments could be made, John made it to the table. "Way to start the party without me," he said, sitting on the end of the booth near Clarke.

"John," Emori said shortly.

Raven pushed her lips together as an awkward silence fell over the table. "Who wants shots?" she exclaimed suddenly, standing quickly and scooting passed Emori. Because of her leg, she didn't wear heels, so she easily made her way through the crowd to the bar in her flats. She bumped elbows with someone as she got to the counter and an apology fell from her mouth without a thought.

The woman she'd bumped into had a mess of hair and turned around with a warm smile. "Raven!" Luna exclaimed, hugging Raven. Raven hugged her back, a laugh bubbling up from her chest. "I didn't know you would be here."

"Where's Echo?" Raven asked. It was the Thunderdome's resident inner joke that two of their pilots never went by their legal names, but rather took their Jaeger's name, Luna Echo, and used that instead. The two women were also inseparable, which meant that they very commonly got referred to as a single unit.

Luna turned and pointed to where Echo was doing her best to talk down a Jaeger tech who Raven recognized but couldn't place his name.

"We're all over there in a booth," Raven said, shooting a thumb over her shoulder. "You should join us!"

Luna nodded enthusiastically and went to save Echo. Raven got a whole tray of shots and managed to get back to the table without spilling any of them. Luna and Echo arrived moments later; Luna in a stylized bohemian shift dress and Echo dressed similarly to Bellamy in suit pants and a white t-shirt that hugged her muscled form, showing off the tattoos on her arms.

Once the shots started flowing, even Emori loosened up a bit. Soon their conversation was nothing but drunken yells over the music and horrible group dancing just outside of their little booth.

Bars weren't apt to kick out Rangers, but when three in the morning came rolling around, the group was kindly escorted outside and called a shuttle back to the Thunderdome.

Bellamy and Clarke were holding each other up. John had his head bent toward Luna and Echo and the three of them were giggling and laughing like lunatics. Emori and Raven had their arms linked and were singing a bad rendition of the newest pop song that they both secretly adored.

Raven was the first to see the shuttle. Lurching away from Emori, she stepped into the street and waved her arms high above her head to flag it down. The road was thin and packed and the shuttle barely fit. Oblivious and slow in her drunken state, Raven let out a yelp when she was grabbed around the waist and pulled back onto the sidewalk just before the shuttle stopped right where she'd been standing.

"Whoa," she laughed, not quite registering how close she'd come to getting hit. The arms around her middle didn't move away and she had to pry herself away. Turning around, she tried to keep it together when she saw John Murphy, of all people, looking at her in a way that made her stomach flip around and it had nothing to do with the alcohol. Time expanded just long enough for one long gaze before the shuttle door opened.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry! Please get in," the driver said, motioning them inside.

The crew stumbled in and sprawled across the seats. Clarke curled up in Bellamy's lap. Luna and Echo shared a seat, their hair tangling up together. Raven stretched out her leg across a second seat. Emori purposefully sat next to John, who pressed his forehead against the vibrating window as the shuttle started back toward the Thunderdome.

"It's been three years," Emori said, taking care with her words so they weren't slurred. "Can't we be at least be civil?"

John heaved a sigh. "Is that what you want?"

She frowned a little. "It would be a start."

John's eyes flickered over to Raven, who had her eyes closed across the aisle. "Yeah, okay. Civil."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clarke slid onto the bench next to Bellamy at breakfast. Thank god for the heavy meds, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to handle the bright cafeteria lights and the din of all the crew gathering food and chatting.

"Do you even remember what the party was supposed to be about last night?" she asked, frowning into her scrambled eggs and toast. They'd congratulated her and Bellamy about their kill, but that was just about all she remembered. The party had been set up a couple weeks ago, so unless Raven Reyes was a psychic, there  _had_  to be another reason.

Bellamy sipped his strong coffee from a tin mug and frowned. "Was it a promotion or something?"

Clarke thoughtfully chewed on her eggs. "How could we both forget this? We're in each other's heads all the time."

"Maybe too much?" Bellamy suggested. There was a pause and both of them laughed softly at the thought of such a thing being true. Bellamy then pointed and nodded toward Clarke's left. "Let's just ask. Raven!"

Hearing her name, Raven headed to where the two Rangers were sitting. She slid in across from them. "Hey guys. Did Murphy come back with us last night?" she asked before biting into toast.

"I think so," Bellamy said as Clarke nodded and said, "Yeah. I saw him this morning."

Raven shrugged and dug into her eggs. "Did you guys have fun last night?"

"It was awesome," Clarke said with a smile. "We were actually just talking about it." The two pilots exchanged a glance.

"I hate when you guys do that," Raven said, putting down her fork. "That Jaeger telepathy shit is freaky. Just tell me."

"Okay, don't be mad," Clarke started.

"We can't remember what the party was for last night," Bellamy finished.

Raven was expecting something worse. Instead she just wrinkled up her nose in a laugh. "Is that all? Guys, it's chill." She waved her hand. "It was just a personal milestone anniversary with the PPDC. Honestly, it was just an excuse to hang out." Both Rangers let out a sigh of relief. "Luna and Echo being there was a fluke that just made it better."

"And Murphy?" Clarke prompted, since Raven had already asked about them. Even though she knew they had a complication history. Not only was he Emori's ex, and Emori was Raven's best friend, but he was also the reason for Raven's bum leg. As far as Clarke knew, however, they'd patched things up since then.

Raven shrugged, though she met Clarke's eyes briefly in a fleeting woman-to-woman moment. "We all had fun, didn't we?" the mechanic said instead.

Once their trays were cleaned, Clarke and Bellamy headed to the training rooms for their morning workouts and Raven headed to the technician's hub.

It was busy, like always, because Rangers were tough on their Jaegers and they needed constant upkeep. The machines were  _huge_  and they didn't just run on magic. Every piece from the huge facial plates, to the tiniest, quarter inch bolt, had to be in perfect shape to run a smooth Jaeger.

Grabbing a tablet off the nearest counter, Raven walked through to the open section of the hub that led to countless catwalks that stretched across the hanger. Multiple scissor lifts also served to help the tiny humans to work on the massive machines.

Emori caught up with her and bumped her elbow against Raven's. "Morning," she said cheerfully with no signs of a hangover. Raven took a moment to give her friend a smile before flicking through the screens on the tablet in hand.

"How's the coolant leak on Alpha Mountain coming along?" Raven asked, nodding toward one of the Jaegers under her jurisdiction. It was large and hulking, painted white and showing lots of mechanical parts.

"They should finish in the hour," Emori said, resting her tablet in her left hand and scanning through things with her smaller index finger. "Arken Sky needs replacement hydraulics in the legs and a flush of fluids. There's hull damage on the left side that we haven't even gotten a look at, and one of the triggering mechanisms jammed during the fight."

Raven arched an eyebrow. "Clarke and Bellamy really put the thing through the ringer this time," she muttered, surveying the damage through her screen. Stopping at the edge of the platform, she looked at all of the Jaegers she kept in tip top shape. This was the work she was proud of. She could say that she was able to save the world.

Nodding and with a swell of pride budding in her chest, Raven handed Emori her tablet and took a step up to the nearest catwalk that would take her to Anchor Polis. The Jaeger hadn't had much field time, but Raven was just told of two new pilots that would be working with the Mark III so she wanted to take a look to make sure the diagnostics looked good.

The Conn-Pod sat nestled between the Jaeger's shoulders, and there were no crew crawling around on it like ants. There was, however, someone standing on the catwalk, their back to her.

"Hey," she called out, all business as her slow, limp of a walk made the catwalk shift slightly. "Do you have permission to be up here?"

"Probably not," John Murphy replied, turning just in time to see the surprise on her face before she smothered it.

Raven squared her shoulders and continued walking, slipping past him and down to the platform that hung from the hanger ceiling with offshoots in five directions. She took the one that would lead her across the hanger to Anchor Polis's Conn-Pod. She did  _not_  tell Murphy to leave, and he trailed behind her.

"How did you get up here? I thought they kept benched pilots cordoned off to just the living quarters," she said as she got to the other end of the catwalk and climbed down to the platform directly next to the head of the Jaeger. She tried not to look over at Murphy, not since the weird drunken feelings had started to creep up all around her since last night.

"I'm a cockroach," John offered as explanation. "No one notices me anymore. It's been three years."

Raven grabbed a clunky device with wires dangling from it. It wasn't pretty, but it took more than a thin tablet to run diagnostics on even half a Jaeger. "Do you miss it?" Raven asked, sparing a glance over at him. His hair was kept at shaved military standard, though he didn't have a uniform and was only kept here in case they were hit with an emergency and they needed a second pilot.

Alpha Mountain had been his Jaeger for a few years and multiple Kaiju kills before Mexico happened. The Jaeger hadn't seen much action since John's benching and Ranger Jordan's transfer up to Alaska. The Mark II sat next to Anchor Polis, but Raven couldn't get side tracked from her job and go check out the dormant Jaeger when she had to make sure this one was ready for the new Rangers.

John leaned against the metal bannister, dwarfed by the size of the Jaeger. "Yeah," he said simply, nodding his head. "But I fucked up, and here we are." He looked over and saw her hesitation. Straightening up, he raised his eyebrows. "What?"

Raven bit her bottom lip, knowing that it was going against the politics of it all, but she said the words before she could stop: "Come inside with me." Clutching the device to her chest, she walked through the door to her right, through the skeleton of a hall around to the back of the Conn-Pod. The entrance the Rangers used was high above, coming off more uniform halls, but there was always a way to get in for last minute tweaks once the Conn-Pod was secured to the Jaeger.

John followed silently and Raven started up the emergency power once she stepped foot inside. Anchor Polis was a Mark III, so it had more updated systems than Luna Echo and Alpha Mountain. The two mechanical arms hanging empty where pilots were  _plugged in_. There was more space in a Conn-Pod than a lot of people realized.

Raven walked around the opening in the floor where the boots were locked in to move the Jaeger's legs and headed toward the front of the face. Murphy hung back, as if he was afraid of being back in here. Raven crouched down on the far side of the systems operation panel. After prying open the cover, she plugged in the scanner in her hands. And then she looked up at John, who was cautiously moving farther inside, running his hands on the long dormant pistons that were a part of the mechanical arms connected to Rangers through the spine piece in their outfit.

Unless he had somehow found a way to sneak in, it must have been three years since Murphy stepped foot in a Jaeger.

"So what happened?" Raven asked, turning her attention back to the screen as it began to record the data from the Jaeger. "In Mexico. I heard some reports but I'm just a tech. I don't get missions debriefs."

"Emori didn't tell you?"

Raven shook her head. She hadn't even known Emori before two years ago; she hadn't been around for any of the time Emori and Murphy dated. She knew just enough, but nothing specific. Especially not something about how he was benched from the program.

"Okay," he said in a way that was hard to describe as anything other than a John Murphy style of intonation. "It was us versus Bonesquid. I wanted to save ships in the water. Command didn't. We saved the ships but Bonesquid got past and killed a couple hundred people in Guadalajara that hadn't evacuated in time. I took all the blame. Jasper was sent to the base in Alaska. I hear he killed himself." John punched the side of the piston gently. "Sad story with a sad ending."

Raven took a deep breath. She may make and upkeep the machines the Rangers used, but  _she_  wasn't the one actually killing Kaiju and making choices in the field. The device beeped and she unplugged it and stood. "I'm not here to place blame," she told him. "I just wanted to know."

"Good, I don't need your pity," he said, turning to follow her out of the Jaeger.

Raven was glad he couldn't see the grin on her face. She lifted her fingers and rubbed her index and thumb together.

"What's that?" he asked.

"A cockroach playing a tiny violin," she replied, not resisting a look over her shoulder at him.

He cracked a smile and shook his head. "Very funny."

She shrugged a shoulder and laughed fully as they reached the platform again. "You should get back to the living quarters before you get caught."

"Gonna turn me in, Reyes?"

"Nu-uh, you're not worth my time," she teased, plugging the device into the panel at the station and sending it back to the main servers. She watched Murphy head back the way they'd come over the catwalks. Her smile soon fell, but her mood didn't.

As she unplugged the scanner and placed it back where it was stored, she took in a deep breath. "I'm so screwed," she muttered before hefting herself up the few ladder steps to the catwalk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clarke woke to the Kaiju alarm blaring through her bunk. It had been a couple months since the last attack. She didn't keep track, but word had it that they were showing up more frequently now.

No matter, Clarke jumped out of bed and quickly pulled on her jacket and boots. Some PPDC locations kept their co-pilots in the same bunks, but not the Thunderdome. She wrenched open the door and rushed through the hall. She spotted Bellamy ahead and fell into step beside him. Despite their height difference, they walked in sync.

Headed to the debriefing room, they were encased in the black and white Jaeger drivesuit. It had a lot of parts, but they'd done this a lot.

" _There's a Category III out there. Raythe. It's near a populated city so a three Jaeger team is going out. Luna Echo to lead. Arknet Sky to hang back and interfere only when instructed_ ," Marshall Jaha called out through the entire hanger.

Clarke glanced at Bellamy and stuck out her tongue. They were good at following orders, but sometimes it wasn't worth going through getting all ready for a fight only to not even see a lick of battle.

" _The third Jaeger will be Anchor Polis with the new pilots, Rangers Miller and Lincoln. They're running interference to keep Raythe from reaching the city_."

That was it. No inspirational speeches from their leader.

Clarke and Bellamy got final touches and then locked into the Conn-Pod. The drop down to Arknet Sky's body always gave Clarke butterflies.

"So we're watching the noob's backs," Clarke said, flicking a few buttons as the display screen came up in front of them.

"C'mon," Bellamy said, giving her  _a look_. "It'll be fun."

Clarke rolled her eyes as the hydraulics stopped them suddenly and the Conn-Pod connected to the rest of the Jaeger. No sooner than that, Arknet Sky began to be rolled out through the hanger. They'd run the neural handshake remotely.

It was almost boring, being pulled around by tanks and helicopters.

It was a relief when Monty Green's voice came through to them. "How're we doing today, Rangers?" he asked.

"Good, Monty. Nice to hear you're joining us," Clarke said with a smile.

"Uh-huh. Hold tight. Initializing neural handshake in twenty seconds." There was some shuffling in the background. "Ten, nine, eight…"

"Ready?" Clarke asked out of habit.

"Together," Bellamy replied. It was the same sort of script they always used to prepare themselves.

"Two, one!"

There was no describing the neural handshake. Memories mixed and soon neither of you knew whose memories were whose. For seasoned veterans like Bellamy and Clarke, it was like slipping into a favorite pair of old jeans. They fit together perfectly and had long ago worked out any kinks or hiccups.

"Handshake is holding nicely," Monty assured them because it was protocall.

They didn't need to be  _told_ ; they could feel it.

"Let's go kick some ass," Bellamy said, just before they were dropped by the copters.

The two of them wavered on their feet, steadying themselves as they ended up nearly to their waist in the bay water. Luna Echo was already there, and Anchor Polis was dropped soon after.

"Right, or just stand here," Clarke said, remembering their orders.

They stood off to the side, so they didn't notice when Raythe came through the water. They saw the Kaiju when the others did: as it burst out of the water and tackled Luna Echo. They flinched together, and watched as Luna Echo kept her footing. Raythe was big and bulky, but moved rather quickly, especially through water.

Bellamy and Clarke's ears run with the connected coms with the other two Jaegers.

"Keep it together!" Echo yelled—because in the heat of battle it was too easy to just yell even though everything was silently communicated anyway. It a normal, human response.

Clarke clenched her jaw and her left fist. Bellamy did the same out of reflex, the enormous robot hand mimicking the movements.

"Clarke," Bellamy cautioned.

"I know," Clarke mumbled.

They stayed put, keeping a keen eye and scanners on Raythe and the city beyond. The Kaiju charged again, but Luna Echo was ready, gripping its jaws in giant metal hands and pulling.

When you were in a Jaeger, everything seemed to happen slow and fast all at the same time. Ten hours in a Jaeger could feel like a single hour and sometimes an hour long fight felt like it lasted days. Your opponent had a lot to do with it.

Kaiju were easily underestimated.

In this moment, things moved in slow motion.

Luna Echo tore the bottom jaw off Raythe, leaving it hanging by flesh and one joint. They dropped the Kaiju from their grasp.

Clarke's eyes widened as she saw movement in the water. "Look out!" she screamed, just as a sharp, barbed tail flew out of the water.

It pierced the Conn-Pod and everyone's ears were filled with the sounds of incoherent screams.

"Shit!" Ranger Miller's voice cut through it as Anchor Polis took as fast steps as it could through the water toward the Kaiju and Luna Echo that was trying to keep on its feet.

"Pulse cannon!" Ranger Lincoln's yelled as the Kaiju thrashed around.

" _Stay put, Arken Sky! That's an order_ ," Marshal Jaha's voice spoke directly to Clarke and Bellamy amid protests.

Both of them made their fists into hands, ready to jump in if they saw an opening. Their ears rung with screams and Luna's stuttering.

"Power draining! Keep it together! Echo? Echo!"

Clarke squeezed her eyes shut as Alpha Mountain grabbed the tail and ripped it out of Luna Echo's Conn-Pod. Raythe's gorey mouth opened to spray a primal growl at them along with thick saliva. Their pulse canon demolished the rest of the head.

"Raythe's losing core temp," Miller said over the comms. "It's dead."

Luna Echo was barely standing, the machine wavering. Without an order, Clarke and Bellamy walked forward, barely catching the massive robot so that it didn't fall face first into the water and drown the Rangers trapped inside.

"Bellamy," Clarke said softly as helicopters came to gather the Jaegers. Her eyes were on the wrecked Conn-Pod.

"I know," Bellamy replied, wishing he could comfort her but they had to keep it together until they were back at the Thunderdome.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"You okay?"

Raven startled from the corner where she'd hidden herself away, determined not to cry in front of her crew. She hastily wiped her face and turned, only to see John Murphy there, once again in a restricted area that he wasn't supposed to be in.

He didn't comment on her puffy eyes or how she kept sniffing. "Yeah," she said before clearing her throat. "I'm okay."

He held out a bottle: beer, and not some cheap stuff. "It's rough," he said, leaning against the nearest bannister and taking a swig of his own drink.

Raven slowly popped her cap and joined him. "Yeah. I just...I can't imagine how Luna feels."

John pressed his lips together and looked down the ninety stories where people were still working furiously. No deaths could stop the Jaeger program for even a second. It was bigger than the many working parts that kept it moving forward. It was the sum of its parts. That's what the world cared about. "She'll be pretty messed up."

Raven nodded, the back of her throat burning with the urge to start sobbing. She'd already done that the last few nights. The memorial for Echo was piled high with flowers, but like always, the Thunderdome kept going onward. Raven couldn't look at Luna Echo without breaking out into tears, but she would have to start serious repairs soon.

"Raven…" John moved closer and put a hand on her shoulder. Her head fell, chin to chest, hair falling all around her face. "I know I'm not all that reliable but y'know. I'm here."

She nodded a little because  _hell_ , he really was the only one here. Clarke and Bellamy had each other and were on probation for blowing up at the Marshal for not letting them move in early and for putting the rookies in as interference. They'd gone and gotten a hotel room for a week in an inland city. But Raven was stuck here, surrounded by ghosts. Emori was picking up her slack, which she was grateful for, but she didn't have  _anyone_. There were a few guys she'd had casual flings with in the past, but they weren't exactly good for comforting a sobbing mechanic.

"Thanks," she finally managed to say once her voice was steady. She swapped beer hands and put her fingers on top of his on her shoulder. A few quiet minutes passed, filled with the trill of drills, the  _fzzzt_  of sparks flying, the clanging as parts were dropped. It was all the things that Raven typically loved, but right now, it weighed down on her. "And who ever called you unreliable?"

"Hmmm? Oh...Emori," John shrugged. He quickly took his hand back and Raven took a few deep breaths before straightening her spine.

And there it was. The fact that Raven was friends with his ex was….a roadblock. It also was a good excuse for her to push herself into her work. To forget all about his horrid flirting or the warmth of his hand through her shirt.

Because all she wanted to do was throw herself at him and drag him back to her bunk. But it was an unwritten rule not to date your friends exes.

"Right," Raven said, taking a big chug of her beer and regretting it as it burned down her throat. "I should get back to work."

"With a buzz?" John arched an eyebrow.

Raven shoved the bottle into his hand. Their fingers brushed and she silently screamed because life  _sucked_  and unwritten rules were the worst. "The apocalypse waits for no one," she said with a shrug, forcing a fake smile onto her face as she climbed up onto the catwalk and began moving back to the tech hub.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clarke curled into Bellamy's side as they walked back into the Thunderdome. It was daunting to newcomers with a hanger bay three hundred feet tall, a faculty with a population of a small city, and twenty Jaegers from Mark Is to the newest Mark IVs. The Rangers barely blinked at the chaos because it was  _organized_  chaos and one they knew well.

Their suspension was due to heated emotions, and it was actually for the best that they walked away. Clarke couldn't help staring at the damage to the Conn-Pod on Luna Echo. Bellamy tugged her through the heavy steel doors toward the living quarters. They met up again once their duffles were unpacked and they were back in uniform.

Pilots were military officers, so they were expected to act accordingly. Put on a strong front. Ranger deaths typically saved hundreds or thousands of lives, but it was still a death. They had friends and families who would mourn the person, not the image of  _pilot_.

Which is why it wasn't surprising but it was sad to see Luna walk into the cafeteria alone, her wild hair more wild than ever. Raven immediately went to her side and Bellamy and Clarke joined them at the end of one of the long sets of tables.

"How are you holding up?" Clarke asked, reaching a hand across the table to squeeze Luna's hand.

"I'm still standing," Luna replied.

Bellamy gave her a sympathetic look and a nod. Bellamy and Clarke had been co-pilots from the beginning. Raven didn't even know what the Drift felt like. None of them could relate, but they all _knew_. Echo hadn't died in the Conn-Pod, but she hadn't lasted long once she was rescued from the destroyed machine. Luna had felt Echo's pain the entire time.

"I'm going to take some leave time," she said after a beat when everyone was quiet and didn't know what to say.

Raven slid close and put her arm around Luna's shoulders. "Do what you need to do. You know where to find us."

Clarke and Bellamy nodded and uttered similar phrases. And Luna surprised them all by keeping up a brave face.

They all knew about how she got into the program. Echo had baited her into it, like a challenge for the girls who grew up as rivals. Luna was the best fighter in the entire Jaeger program, but she didn't get joy out of it. But then she was paired with Echo and their ice and fire worked so well that it was soon impossible to see one without the other.

When Luna stood, the reluctant Ranger turned war hero, there was an empty place at her side. "I have a shuttle waiting for me."

Everyone got to their feet to offer hugs and then she was gone. Just like that.

Clarke let out a shaky breath as she sank back down onto the bench seat. "I can't believe this all happened," she said, curling her hands around the edge of the metal.

"Clarke," Bellamy cautioned.

Raven looked between the both of them, slight bags under her eyes. "What?"

Clarke rehashed why she and Bellamy had been suspended for a week. "If we had been running interference, that wouldn't have happened. Miller and Lincoln are inexperienced pilots. This could have been prevented."

"Don't scream  _that_  from the rooftop," Raven said, glancing around in case the Marshal had ears anywhere near.

Bellamy squeezed Clarke's shoulder as the blonde seethed. "We can't change the past. We can only move forward and make sure this doesn't happen again."

Raven nodded, waving her fork at the two pilots. "It'll take a while to get the Conn-Pod in working order. We're down a Jaeger so don't get your asses kicked off for good, okay?" Just then, she glanced over and spotted Murphy across the hall. "We have enough disgraced pilots here already."

"Since when do you care about John Murphy?" Bellamy asked, eyebrows raised.

"I don't," Raven said quickly. And then in a mumble, "I can't."

Clarke and Bellamy exchanged a glance. This sullen Raven was not the Raven they knew and considered a friend. It definitely had to do with Echo's death, but it also may have something else to it.

"Um, Raven. Time to spill. Distract us from all of  _this_." Clarke waved her hands around empathetically to make up for the lack of words.

Raven shrugged, leaning her elbows against the tabletop. "It's nothing."

"It's something," Bellamy said.

Raven glared at him and kicked him under the table. He flinched but let it go. "It can't be anything. Because of Emori, you know I couldn't do that to her."

Clarke pressed her lips together in contemplation. "But there  _is_  something?"

"I don't know!"

Clarke and Bellamy exchanged a glance, shoving their Jaeger pilot in sync weirdness right in Raven's face. She glowered at them and grumbled, "He flirts horribly. With insults."

"So do you!" Clarke insisted. "It's perfect."

Raven glared again and downed the rest of her coffee. "You're missing the big picture, Clarke."

"No I'm not. If you're worried about Emori...they broke up, what, three years ago before his whole thing in Mexico? It's been a long time. Just talk to her."

Raven turned to Bellamy as she stood up and swung her leg over the bench seat. "Bellamy, maybe Clarke needs a psych eval? She's turning into a matchmaker. I think you're rubbing off on her too much."

Clarke rolled her eyes as Raven left them behind. She headed toward the tech hub and pushed her hands over her hair, smoothing back the pieces that fell out of her ponytail. When she spotted Emori across the way, she gave her a small smile but proceeded to haul herself up onto the catwalk with a tablet under her arm. She headed toward Luna Echo, forcing herself through the emotional impact that even just the name of the Jaeger invoked in her.

"How's it going, Wick?" Raven asked, joining one of the techs at the platform to the right of the Jaeger. Wick was….one of Raven's flings, but that was many years ago and he was a good worker.

"Oh, y'know. It's a fucking mess," Wick replied. With hands perpetually stained in oil, he swiped over the newest scans of the Jaeger to Raven's tablet.

She bit down on the inside of her cheek as she looked over everything that needed to get done. Most of the damage was to the Conn-Pod. Superficial damage to the hull, some minor hydraulics leaks in the legs, and then the Conn-Pod. The left hemisphere's connector arm needed a new piston and brace, the systems connecting to the hydraulics and weapons was fried, and they'd have the rehaul the connection to LOCCENT. Plus numerous other small fixes and the replacement of the entirely front windscreen.

"It won't be operational for a couple months. Two if we work 24/7," Wick supplied when Raven was quiet for a long time.

Blinking, she looked up and over at the gaping hole in the Conn-Pod and clutched the tablet to her chest. "Right. Then get your ass over there and stop talking to me," she ordered. She could do that now, having been promoted to Head Technician. At least for the handful of Jaegers under her title: Arken Sky, Luna Echo, Alpha Mountain, Anchor Polis and her only Mark IV, Golden Tesla.

Wick just shook his head and did as he was told. Multiple techs were working in the Conn-Pod and the air was filled with the smell of burning metal and oils. This was where Raven thrived: fixing things. Ever since she was little, she would find things that needed fixing and do it. Or she would find something that worked perfectly, take it apart, and  _then_  make it work even better.

What she could fix with her hands was endless, but she was never all that great at fixing herself or her relationships with others. That always faltered.

Shaking her head, Raven also got to work, walking into the Conn-Pod from the backdoor mechanics' way and surveying the damage with her own two eyes.

There was a graveyard for Jaegers on the coast, and and one across the Pacific on the Serbian coast too. It was filled with radioactive leaking Mark I's and Jaegers that were too damaged to fix. Raven didn't want to let any of her machines end up there.

Her eyes lingered on Echo's side of the Conn-Pod before she mentally slapped herself. "Focus, Reyes," she muttered, wrenching her eyes from where her friend spent her last remaining minutes of her life. She walked around to the other side of the main panel and plugged in the device in her hand. Tapping the comm in her ear, she opened a two way call to LOCCENT.

"Are you getting this, Green?" she asked as the tiny machine measured and scanned and sent its date back to the neural hub of the Thunderdome.

A moment later, Monty Green's voice crackled over the line. "Loud and clear. It's a mess. The systems totally freaked out."

Raven nodded even though he was on the other side of the hanger and couldn't see. "Yeah. Even the emergency systems failed. It should have put Echo in an evac pod on life support but...Do you think you'll be able to figure out what we need to do to get the neural handshake tech back online?"

"Yeah, gimme a few," Monty replied. "I'll have it done before you can say Bob's your uncle."

Raven wrinkled her nose. "I hate that expression."

"Yeah, I know," he replied with a chuckle. Raven was thankful for a little distraction. "Leave the scanner plugged in and I'll see what I can find remotely."

Raven agreed and then tapped the comm again, leaving her with nothing but the fellow techs taking apart Luna Echo so they could put it back together again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Emori caught up with Raven in the hall outside Raven's bunk. "Hey! I've been literally chasing you for like ten minutes," Emori grumbled, reaching out and grabbing Raven's elbow.

Raven stopped and turned, forcing a smile. "Sorry. I've been distracted. With Luna leaving and I just...I've been working."

"Yeah, we all have," Emori said with a nod, crossing her arms. "We haven't talked since before…"

"I know. I'm...I'm shit at emotional stuff. I've just been trying to work and figure it out later."

"Cause that always works," Emori said with an arched eyebrow.

The little devils on her shoulders who looked and sounded shockingly like Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin, spoke up and Raven heaved a sigh. "And there's this other thing…"

That peaked Emori's interest. "Oh? And what's this?"

Raven squared her shoulders. She was Raven Reyes, she didn't do this timid girl act. What the fuck was wrong with her? "It's about Murphy."

"Oh," Emori said, obviously not expecting it. "Has he been harrassing you?"

"Harrassing is a strong word…" Raven shook her head. "I know he's an asshole. I mean, fundamentally, logically, I  _get_  that. But he just...keeps showing up just when I need him."

Emori gnawed on her bottom lip. Growing up the child of parents who thought Kaiju were gods to be worshiped, she didn't exactly have a normal upbringing. Relationships weren't her strong suit, but she still tried. She had friends, she tried dating...and found her friendships were more important to her than anything else. "He does that. Gets under your skin and weasels his way in."

"Weasel. Snake. Cockroach. Not exactly the best imagery." Raven frowned and lightly tapped her fingernails against the tablet she'd snagged to do more work in her bunk before crashing out for the night.

Emori shrugged. "It suits him."

"Yeah…"

"I thought he…" Emori glanced down at Raven's leg. The thin tech of her brace was hidden beneath her loose navy pants.

Raven shook her head and waved her hand. "No," she said, because it was true. Everyone heard one story, and believed it, but Raven never corrected them. It wasn't like John Murphy had anything to do with the Kaiju who attacked the Thunderdome while sensors were down. They were both green, newly arrived recruits, and Raven got herself pinned under rubble. John thought he was doing the right thing when he tried pulling her out from underneath. It wasn't his fault, really. He couldn't have known that a piece of shrapnel had dug itself deep in her leg and that it would cut her nerves so she lost most control and feeling in her leg. It was also something that happened eight years ago. "Cutting to the chase, Bellamy and Clarke said I needed to ask you if I could y'know, ask John out or whatever. Because you guys used to date."

It was John who brought Emori to the PPDC. Before, she'd just been a BuenaKai, worshipping Kaiju while messing around with any tech she could find. He'd found her and showed her that she could put her skills to use. It took some convincing and by then Raven had already been solidified as the best tech in the Thunderdome. Raven and Emori hadn't started working together until Emori's second year with the PPDC. Her four year anniversary had come and gone just a few weeks ago. Needless to say, even though Raven and Emori were friends now, they hadn't known each other when she dated John.

"I don't have a claim on him," Emori said slowly. "Is that a thing? Friends not being allowed to date exes?"

"Yes," Raven said with a laugh of relief. "It's this unwritten rule or something."

"I never got the memo. If you like John then...you don't need my permission."

Raven shook her head. All this time she'd been worried about hurting Emori's feelings or ruining their friendship. Blaming Echo's death shaking her normally resolute core, Raven pulled Emori into a hug.

"Just know that he doesn't make anything easy," Emori cautioned.

Raven shrugged. "I'm a tough bitch. And I'm generally awesome," she added with a grin. "I can handle it."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despite its large population, the Thunderdome was like a college campus: rumors and gossip flew faster than anyone could keep a lid on things. Clarke heard someone yelling behind her, sharp  _HEY_ s and ignored it. That is, until someone put a hand on her shoulder, yanking her to a stop.

She spun out of the grip and turned to find herself facing down the two rookie pilots, Miller and Lincoln. Both of them looked pissed. Clarke sighed, ready for the avalanche to come crashing down over her.

"So you have the guts to talk to the Marshal behind our backs but not to our faces?" Miller exclaimed.

Clarke raised her eyebrows. Both Rangers were much taller than she was, but she'd been fighting far longer than them. Plus she was well respected here at the Thunderdome. The quiet crowd surrounding them wasn't looking for a fight to cheer on; it was there to stop them from attacking  _her_. "You want me to tell you what I think to your faces?" she asked. "Okay. I think it was a mistake for Marshal Jaha to set you two up as interference, especially so close to a populated area. You two have great track records in the simulator but real life is a totally different thing. I think if Arknet Sky had been running interference, Ranger Azgeda would still be  _alive_!"

"That's bullsht," Lincoln said as Miller seethed. "We just followed orders."

"And I shouldn't have! We were too far away and the Kaiju was too fast for someone with no field experience," Clarke's words had a sharp edge to them. She pointed a finger at them. "You were too slow and Echo's death is on  _you_."

Many things happened then:

Raven Reyes had pushed through the crowd and was reaching toward Clarke's arm to drag her away from the irate Rangers.

Wells Jaha, the decorated Jaeger pilot from the Alaska station here visiting his father, silently melted away into the crowd, cataloguing everything he'd heard from the fight.

John Murphy, sick of being cooped up in the Thunderdome and itching for a fight, made his way through the crowd to see what the deal was with the raised voices.

Nathan Miller, fueled by childish rage, shoved Clarke back, who fell into Raven. Raven fell back, unable to move quickly enough, and fell hard on the concrete floor, landing on her elbow. Pain shot through her arm.

Raven hissed in pain as Clarke turned from looking at Raven in shock, to hardening her gaze at Miller. "What the hell," she said darkly, just as Murphy came up out of nowhere and shoved Miller back in retaliation.

"What're you doing?" Miller asked, confusion muddling his anger. "Who the hell even are  _you_?"

"Murphy don't," Raven cautioned as Clarke helped her to her feet.

John didn't listen, taking her words and the fact that she had been the one to get hurt as an invitation to pull his arm back and punch Miller in the face. His fist made satisfying contact, but he'd forgotten that Rangers come in pairs. Lincoln retaliated by shoving Murphy away and landing his own punch to the benched pilot's face, splitting his eyebrow.

"Son of a bitch!" Murphy hissed, ready to keep going.

"What the  _hell_  is going on here Rangers?!" Marshal Jaha's voice cut through the crowds like a knife through soft butter.

The crowds scattered and the Rangers and mechanic involved in the fight were left alone in the hall. They all stood at attention, even as John's eyebrow bled profusely and dripped down the side of his face and Miller's eye was already getting swollen from the punch landed.

Jaha looked from face to face. "All of you. My office, now."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raven had never been in the Marshal's office before. She was a tech, so if she had any problems she went to Sinclair, never to Jaha. She also felt out of place since she had just been pushed during the fight, she hadn't actually been involved. In fact, she had been trying to  _stop_  the fight from happening.

Wells stood in the far corner, amusement ticking up the corners of his mouth as the four Rangers talked over each other at Jaha until the din in the room was almost unbearable.

"Enough!" Jaha yelled once he'd had enough.

Raven stood quietly to the side. Beside her, Clarke was still as a statue, and next to Clarke, Murphy held a towel to his eyebrow, the side of his face smeared with blood.

"This is entirely unacceptable," the Marshal said. "This isn't an elementary schoolyard. This is a military operation in charge of saving lives! I won't tolerate this kind of behavior from my Rangers."

"But sir!" Miller started.

"If you just—" Lincoln stuttered to a stop at the look in Jaha's eyes.

"Ranger Griffin has already told me her grievances about the loss of Ranger Azgeda. If any Ranger has any personal vendettas against another Ranger, you do  _not_  start a fist fight in the middle of my facility!"

A murmur of "Yes, sir"s filled the air.

"If there is an issue, you bring it up to me or another commanding officer and we handle it like adults, not like children." He was quiet for enough time for it to be uncomfortable. When he spoke again, his voice held a weariness that was not there before. "I feel the weight of every Ranger's death on my shoulders. You all follow my orders and those orders are mine alone. I know some of you were very close to Ranger Azgeda, and I am sorry if you feel that my orders were involved in the loss of her life."

Wells stepped forward then, clearing his throat. "Marshal," he said, respectfully.

Jaha waved a hand at him. "Yes. My son is here with news. I will be sharing it will the rest of the dome tomorrow. The Australian and Peruvian facilities have both fallen. The Kaiju are becoming more frequent and stronger. I have to distribute my Jaegers and pilots to help compensate for the loss of the facilities. We've come to a pinnacle point in this war."

None of the Rangers showed nearly as much surprise as Raven. Did that mean that she was going to be transferred with her Jaegers? Would her group of friends be split up after eight years of forming a flawless team?

"The two facilities lost seventeen Jaegers between them. So I need all of you to put aside your feelings and do your goddamn jobs," Jaha finished.

"All of us, sir?" John asked.

Jaha sighed. "Yes, Ranger Murphy. You're reinstated. We'll be having compatibility trials soon and you'll be paired with a new co-pilot. We need all hands on deck. Reyes?"

Raven had no official title, since she was just tech. She shook her confusion away and looked the Marshal in the eyes. "Yes, sir?"

"How are your Jaegers?"

"All in working order, sir. Except for Luna Echo. There was significant damage and it will be another month before she'll be ready."

She could tell by the look on his face that wasn't what he wanted to hear, but he nodded anyway. "Try to make it happen faster," was all he said. Raven nodded. "You're all dismissed. Do not breathe a word of this before my announcement."

They filed out of Jaha's office like kids leaving a principal's office. Miller and Lincoln walked shoulder to shoulder, stride to stride, back toward the cafeteria. Clarke lingered, checking on Raven's arm.

"I'm so sorry," Clarke said, squeezing the arm. She had limited medical knowledge, at least compared to her mom, but it didn't feel as if anything had been fractured in the fall.

"It's fine, Clarke. I'll be fine," Raven assured her. "Now go and find Bellamy and not tell him everything we just heard."

Clarke smiled and shook her head, disappearing from the hall.

"You're gonna be okay?" Murphy asked, reminding Raven that he was still there.

Raven nodded, turning to face him. "That was the stupidest thing you could've done," she said, shaking her head. She walked closer, pulling the towel away from his face. The blood was starting to coagulate, but he still had blood drying on his face and shoes. "I could've taken him down myself."

"Yeah, I'm sure you could," John said with total sincerity.

Raven tilted her head to the side, a slow smile growing on her face.

He raised his eyebrows. "What?"

She kissed him in response, grabbing his shirt and not holding back. They probably shouldn't be kissing right in front of the Marshal's office, but they did anyway. Murphy dropped the bloody towel to wrap his arms around her torso and Raven locked her arms around his neck.

They kissed until they were breathless and—

"Ahem."

They broke apart slowly in a daze to see the blue uniform'd Ranger Wells Jaha standing there. It took a few seconds for them to catch up with their present situation. Scrambling apart, they dipped their heads and walked away as quickly as Raven could.

Once they were around a corner, they stopped.

"What was that for?" Murphy asked as Raven grabbed his hand to keep him from walking farther away from her.

Raven made a face. "You're the worst, but I can't help myself," she said, pulling him closer by his beltloops to resume their kissing. "Plus you're a reinstated Ranger, so you get all the perks."

"You're the best one," he said, which was a lot more cheesy than Raven thought he could be, but she'd be damned if it didn't make her want him even more.


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the core group is split up across the globe, Raven has to deal with her budding relationship with John, the loss of her friends, and some things from her past she thought she'd gotten over. Meanwhile, Clarke plays middle-man between the Blake siblings and hides her sadness about being separated from the Thunderdome with big smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this ended up two times as long as the first part and focused much more on Murven. 
> 
> I tried to fit in as many connections between characters as I could without weighing down the storyline!
> 
> Beware the feels! Maybe grab some tissues?
> 
> There was really no place in the content warnings up there at the top but there is mentions of **suicide** in this fic.

"You've almost got 'em, Alpha, don't let your guard down," Monty Green said into the microphone, his words transported to the Jaeger pilots of Alpha Mountain, currently battling the Kaiju Taurax.

He glanced over his shoulder at Raven Reyes, who shouldn't really be in this room but she was here anyway, watching the sonar screen in front of Monty and biting on her thumbnail.

"You okay back there?"

Raven shrugged. "Yeah. I mean, my boyfriend is in a giant robot fighting a sea monster. It's all fine."

Monty chuckled. "Dating a Ranger is a whole new experience. Or so I've been told." He lifted his hand and wiggled the finger with a single gold band. "Happily married. Civilian. I actually get to go home to someone instead of my home being here."

"Ouch. You're saying there's something wrong with the Thunderdome?"

"Nope," Monty said, leaning forward as the scan of Taurax stopped moving on the screen. "Looking good, guys. Get ready for a ride home once you double tap."

They had all learned not to turn your back or attention away from a Kaiju, even if you thought it was dead. It may cost a couple thousand or million in extra weapons deployment, but it was worth it to save lives.

"Shake it twice," John Murphy's voice came over the LOCCENT speakers.

Raven rolled her eyes but relief flooded her body. She took over the microphone, pressing the old school button at the base. "Good, now get your ass back here in one piece, John Murphy."

"I do love it when you're demanding," John replied.

"Uh guys, you know this isn't a private line, right?" John's new co-pilot, Maya Vie, commented.

Raven didn't care, laughing a little as Monty wrenched the microphone from her hand. "Okay guys. Just uh...hold tight. We'll get you back to base soon."

"Copy that," Maya said before the line was cut.

Monty twisted around in his chair and gave Raven  _a look_. "The only reason I let you up here was because I'm nice. Next time though…"

Raven held up her hands, palms out. "Okay, okay. Thank you, Monty." She patted his shoulder and headed out of LOCCENT and down through the many, many stories to the base level of the station.

It had been a few months since Ranger Wells Jaha arrived at the Thunderdome to deliver the bad news of the destruction of two other PPDC facilities. A few months since Raven took a jump off the deep end with John Murphy. A few months since Murphy had been reinstated as an active Ranger. A few months since her friend group was split up across the world.

She was happy for John, of course. She could tell that he enjoyed being a Ranger. It made sense. Beating creatures senseless in a giant robot was exactly the kind of thing someone like John Murphy would like. But that didn't mean she didn't worry. It was different than when her friends went out in pairs. She never worried the same amount for Bellamy and Clarke in Arken Sky, their beautiful Mark II. It was one of the first of its line, with a whole slew of new tech and safety features. The Mark I's were all tanked due to the radiation sickness from the hastily put together machines.

Murphy's Jaeger, Alpha Mountain, was also under Raven's care. It was another sturdy Mark II. It had a white paint job and was a little bulky. She never played favorites, but she would be lying a little bit if she said she didn't like Alpha Mountain a little bit more now than she had in the past.

It would take a few hours for the Jaeger and its pilots to come back. The hangar was already getting the tanks prepped and Raven limped her way across toward her small band of Jaegers. Arken Sky's place was vacant, and Luna Echo didn't have a full-time crew. Anchor Polis's pilots were hanging out around her feet, the radio playing as the pilots played poker with some of their crew members.

Raven did her best not to glare or yell at them for being in the hangar when they should have been in the barracks. They had no beef toward her, per say, but John  _had_  punched Miller a few months ago after a shouting match between Clarke and Miller. Raven sided with her best friend, of course, which meant that she didn't exactly  _befriend_  the Anchor Polis pilots but she tried not to stir up trouble.

"Sad, isn't it?" Emori said, appearing at Raven's elbow as the Head Technician headed toward the elevator to her tech hub.

Raven heaved a sigh at Arken Sky's empty bay. "Yeah." A few months ago, they'd lost seven of their twenty Jaegers. They were sent away to protect Australia and Peru. Raven had lost Arken Sky and her only Mark IV, Golden Tesla. She'd also lost her mentor, Sinclair, who traveled with his three Jaegers to Peru.

"They were always so perfect and happy, it was insulting," Emori grumbled as she crossed her arms and leaned against the industrial bar inside the elevator.

Raven chuckled. Bellamy and Clarke  _weren't_  perfect but they were almost always happy. "Just be glad Murphy and I aren't as sickening," Raven mentioned.

"Praise the Breach," she muttered amusedly, using one of the few phrases lingering in her vocabulary from her cultish upbringing. The BuenaKai worshiped the Kaiju as gods and had temples all across the globe. Emori's true stance on whether or not she felt bad about helping put down Kaiju was up for debate, but she was still here after four years so she must have gotten pulled away from her roots a little bit.

Raven jabbed Emori with an elbow before they walked out of the lift. The tech hub was always busy. There were many Jaegers to upkeep, and the systems could be finicky. This was even more so as newer tech came to the table.

"Kaiju are showing up every couple weeks now," Emori said, handing Raven a tablet. "We're just trying to stay ahead of things."

Raven nodded, scanning the display in her hands. There had been a breach near Japan just five weeks ago. It had been taken down but they'd lost one Jaeger. Raven had a track record of keeping her Jaegers out of the Graveyards and she planned to keep it that way. "Did we fix the neural glitch in Luna Echo?" Raven asked. Raven paused and took a deep breath. She really wished they'd changed that name. "Marshal says we'll be getting fresh rookies in there soon."

Emori swiped her index finger across the screen a couple times. "Fixed but we won't know for sure until we try a new neural handshake."

Drift systems were complicated and intricate. Not only did two human pilots mentally rub off on one another, but the machines themselves were known to connect to their pilots too. There were a number of stories and times when a Jaeger moved a little bit while it had no pilots connected. Like a phantom limb, a sleeping pilot could  _influence_  their machine.

It was even more freaky when two pilots worked in a Jaeger for a long time. The bond created between mind and machine was something no one could program into a computer. Luna Echo had been piloted by the same two women for a decade. It was one of the first Mark II's. And because of that, the machine was hesitant to allow a new set of pilots into its wiring.

Raven bit down on her lower lip. She'd been very close to one of the pilots who lost her life three months ago, but she didn't like seeing her Jaegers sitting unused in the hangar. "Have Monty triple check. We have a test scheduled next week." She didn't know the details, but she wanted to be ready.

"Got it," Emori nodded. She paused on the edge of the platform. "Where are you going?"

Raven moved to the catwalk that connected to many other walks and platforms like a big spider web for tech and crew. "Gonna go hang in a harness and get my hands dirty before John gets back," she said before hauling herself up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There was a cheer through the cafeteria of the Sydney PPDC station when Alpha Mountain landed another hit to Taurax. The screens all around the station were playing the newsreel, though the footage was mostly just news anchors talking about evacuation plans and jargon about the PPDC to fill the space between the fighting shots.

No one else here  _knew_  the Rangers personally, nor had their Jaeger sat beside Alpha Mountain in a hangar for many years. Bellamy Blake and Clarke Griffin had run a couple of missions beside John Murphy and Jasper Jordan before the unfortunate circumstances surrounding Guadalajara. They were the only ones who knew enough to care that this was Murphy's first mission in over three years.

Clarke's roll was shredded to pieces as they lingered in the cafeteria. Some of their crew had been taken from the Thunderdome in California, but it was still a lonely experience to be without the friends they'd created in the past eight years.

"You okay?" Bellamy asked, putting his hand on the small of her back and dragging her attention away from the huge screen across the caf and back to reality.

Clarke glanced down at her plate and dropped the rest of her roll onto her tray. "This is nerve wracking. I feel like a mom who's worried about her kid's first day of college. Is he gonna stick with his studies or is he gonna end up a drunken idiot in a frat?"

"I'm pretty sure he was a drunken idiot in a frat," Bellamy pointed out. "But I get it." He glanced up at the screen as it showed a previously recorded video of Alpha Mountain being picked up by helicopters from the Thunderdome. "But he's doing good. He won't mess up now. Not after he got this second chance."

Clarke nodded, forcing herself to take a breath and nod. "If he fucks up, Raven will kill him."

"Exactly." He rubbed between her shoulder blades to calm her down. "Let's go. We'll check in later to see what happened."

She knew she should listen to him, but it was hard to resist the six foot tall screen. Swallowing hard, she stood and stepped over the bench, tray in hand. Bellamy followed, and they left their trays on the trash bins along the walls.

The only saving grace of being in Sydney was that there were a lot of single Jaeger teams that had been transferred here after the Kaiju attack that hit Peru first and then slipped away to Sydney. It took the Sydney based Red Queen and Ton DC to finally take it down. So Bellamy and Clarke weren't the only newcomers here. The mess hall was separated into clusters, as people sat with whoever they were comfortable with.

Clarke walked out first, cutting off the din from the caf as they got into the hall. The base had significant damage and a lot of it was cordoned off for repairs. Most of the living space was untouched, as the Kaiju Scunner came and demolished the hangar. It was out to the elements now, leaving the two remaining Sydney Jaegers and the three transfers in the bays that were left standing. It wasn't perfect, but with seven Jaegers taken down by Scunner, the protection was needed for the country consisting of all coastlines.

Bellamy put his arm around her shoulders as they headed...somewhere. Clarke was just letting her feet take her wherever they wanted to go. She didn't want to end up anywhere else with screens showing the battle in Southern California, and she wasn't sure she wanted to force herself to sleep either.

They'd gotten halfway to the hangar—sitting in view of Arken Sky often calmed her nerves—when someone called "Bellamy!" from somewhere behind them.

Bellamy physically tensed briefly before they slowed to a halt and turned around. Walking toward them was a young woman with long black hair and blue eyes, a deep red bomber jacket pulled over her plain black t-shirt.

This was Octavia, Bellamy's little sister.

They were estranged, ever since their mom's death. Octavia had only been a Ranger for a year, and she had all the marks of a cocky, young pilot.

Clarke tried to smooth things over between the siblings whenever she could. "Hey, Octavia," she said, smiling. It was forced, but it was better than nothing.

"Where are you guys headed?" Octavia asked, coming to a halt in front of them. She put her hands on her hips.

"Out to Arken," Clarke shot a thumb over her shoulder. "It stresses me out to watch Jaegers fight on screen."

Octavia pursed her lips as if biting back a retort. "Right. Well, Gaia and I have a poker game set up in like an hour back in the rec hall if you wanted to join."

"Maybe," Bellamy replied somewhat stiffly.

Clarke half-smiled, slipping an arm around his back. "Maybe," she echoed.

Octavia shrugged a shoulder. Either she was oblivious to her brother's cold shoulder or she'd just never admit it bothered her. "Whatever you want." She hesitated before spinning around on her heel and walking off.

"We're not going," Bellamy said once she was out of earshot.

Clarke squeezed his side. "She doesn't know that." Forcing him back around, she had to tug him toward the hangar. There was a lot left unsaid between Drift partners, especially if they were romantically linked or family members—both were the strongest connections for the neural link—but Bellamy and Clarke knew the big stuff about each other.

Like Clarke being recruited from juvvie thanks to the pull her mom had with the PPDC. And Octavia blaming Bellamy for their mom's death even though he had nothing to do with it because it happened while he was at the Jaeger Academy. And Clarke's first boyfriend, Finn, getting killed in a mugging outside a bar just a few months into the Academy. And how they both felt about leaving the Thunderdome, especially while still freshly wounded by the death of Echo, one of the senior pilots who'd become like family to their little crew.

It was all heavy.

And not even Jaeger strength could help them now.

"Let's go back to the room," Bellamy said just as they got to the big doors leading to the hangar.

Clarke sighed and stepped forward, but he caught her hand and stopped her from going very far. "Why? So I can be tempted by my tablet to see how Murphy's doing?"

Bellamy took her other hand and moved to the side of the hall so they weren't blocking the entrance. He swiped the pads of his thumbs over her inner wrists. "You need a distraction right now. I don't think sitting in a destroyed Jaeger hangar, an ocean away from our friends is what you need."

Clarke tilted her head to the side. "And what is it that I need?"

"Just me," Bellamy said simply without a hint of ego. He was good at that, being humble; at least around Clarke. He did like to play hero for the cameras and any kids who wanted his autograph.

She couldn't help letting the soft smile appear on her face, reaching her eyes. "Okay," she said finally. "You've convinced me."

Unlike at the Thunderdome, the bunks here were for two, meaning Jaeger pilots were always together for faster recall time, and other crew were doubled up. It saved space and time all around.

It also cut out the uncertainty of whose room to go back to when they needed space to themselves.

When they got close to their bunk, their steps took on a rushed nature. Bellamy opened the door and Clarke walked in first, spinning around on her heel once inside the threshold to drag him inside. Hands gripping the front of his shirt, she pulled him inside and kissed him. Once the door clicked shut behind them, Bellamy turned his full attention to her.

His hands in her hair and tugging her hips closer. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pushed herself to her toes, holding their bodies flush for a few seconds before they broke apart long enough to tug off boots and shirts.

Their bodies hadn't even cooled before they were back together, mouths and hands familiar and skilled, tailored entirely to each other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The alarm blasted through the Thunderdome as the outer doors opened to let in Alpha Mountain. Raven lost track of time and quickly had to haul herself up to a platform, unhook from the harness, and finally start walking across the catwalks to the nearest elevator. The pilots didn't travel in the Jaeger back from the field, traveling in the copters instead.

Normally she'd try to make it to the doors and the landing platform as the helicopters were setting down, but she was already running behind. By the time she got her hands cleaned and reached the hangar floor, the Jaeger was almost to its bay.

Its pilots walked beside it in the newly released black drivesuits. They were less bulky than the white ones and helped with more fluid movements. The rest of the crew ran about and the air was filled with voices.

"How's my baby?" Raven asked, raising her voice to be heard once they got close enough.

John shrugged, a smug smirk on his face. "Oh, I think I could use some special attention." He held out his arms, expecting a hug and kiss but instead, Raven barrelled past him, her eyes trying to take in the damage done to the two-hundred-and-sixty-foot robot behind him.

He let his arms fall to his sides in defeat. Beside him, Maya laughed, big and full and knocked elbows with him.

"Tough luck, competing with a Jaeger in a tech's heart," she teased before heading off toward the doors leading to the inner workings of the Thunderdome.

"Raven!" John asked, catching up with her even in his heavy suit. "Weren't you worried about me the whole time?"

Raven squinted up at Alpha Mountain. It looked in better shape than some post-battle bots, but she could see sparks flying from the right shoulder and she could smell fluids leaking. "You were fighting for eight hours, I stopped worrying after four," she said, which was a lie. She'd been seriously worried, especially since this was John's first mission in three and a half years. The only saving grace of the whole thing was that he fit so well with Maya.

Their neural handshake hadn't slipped up once.

"You did ruin my sleep schedule though," she commented, twisting around. He was standing just a few feet away. "You'll have to pay for that."

John smirked. "Willingly."

Raven rolled her eyes. "Don't you have a debrief?"

"Yeah, but I thought I'd at least get a kiss or something since I just, y'know, saved the world again."

Raven could always argue, but there were times when it was easier not to. She closed the space between them, hooking her fingers around a thick edge of the armor he wore, and pulled him down for a kiss. All around them, hoots and hollers from the crew met their ears. In unison, they both put up their middle fingers and continued kissing for another solid thirty seconds before breaking apart.

"Meet me in my bunk after your debrief?" Raven asked, still leaning against him, faces close.

John nodded. "Yup. I can definitely do that."

Raven gave him one more chaste kiss before pushing him back. "Now go, do your Ranger thing."

He gave her a two fingered salute and Raven forced the big stupid grin off her face as she followed Alpha Mountain to its bay. She wanted to at least go over the initial scans to know what she was dealing with before heading back to her room. She was pretty exhausted, but she needed to just push herself to go a little bit longer before she could relax.

About an hour later, with a tablet uploaded with Alpha Mountain's scans in her hand, Raven made her way back to her room. She took a detour for a quick shower, and then sat In her bunk, her door slightly ajar. With her brace off, she stretched her bad leg out across the mattress, tucking the other one underneath her butt and stifling yawns as she swiped through Alpha's scans.

By the time John pushed through the door, Raven was halfway into a nap, her head resting back against the concrete wall. She jerked awake and blinked as he announced himself.

"No need to get up, I know I'm welcome," he said, pushing the heavy steel door shut with his whole body, his hands occupied by an ice cream pint and spoons.

"Hardly," Raven quipped, putting aside her tablet and stretching. She blinked long and widely to try to rouse herself.

"So harsh and unforgiving." John shook his head.

"Says the cockroach to the raven," she mused, reaching out for the ice cream. He handed it to her, but not without swooping down for a kiss first.

She pulled open the lid as he jumped onto the bed, sitting close so their shoulders pressed almost uncomfortably together. "Ugh," she made a disgruntled noise in the back of her throat. "Vanilla? Can't we ever get some chocolate or something? I'd even settle for mint."

"Sorry, babe, what you get is what we got. And what we got is getting stricter by the minute." Murphy handed her one of the spoons.

"Stricter?"

"More strict? Whatever."

Raven chuckled and tried not to shiver at the coldness from the ice cream. "So how'd it go? You've been training with Maya but you haven't been in a Jaeger in a long time."

"Like riding a bike. Only the bike has tits."

Raven punched him in the shoulder. "Really?"

"What? I'm being honest. Maya's a great pilot. And I'm no Blake or Griffin, but I can hold my own."

"The handshake was strong the whole fight." Raven dug into the side of the ice cream that was warmed by her hands.

"You watched the whole fight?"

Raven shrugged, stretching out her other leg and curling her toes. "Monty let me stay up in LOCCENT. He said I only got a free pass this once. Next time I have to watch the news like everyone else."

Murphy half smiled. "Okay. It was uh…it was good. We got the kill. I got to show Jaha I'm not a worthless pilot."

"He never thought you were worthless."

"That makes one of us," Murphy muttered out before he put his hand down on her leg, thumb tracing the scar across her thigh. "But at least I killed the Kaiju."

Face falling, Raven set aside the ice cream on the mini fridge at the base of her bed. As much as Raven may tease and poke and prod at John, he wasn't as bad a person as he thought he was. One of the first things Raven could remember about meeting him over eight years ago was how he came into her recovery room after the Kaiju attack that left her pinned under rubble.

"I'm sorry," he'd said, his uniform stained and shredded, covered in blood and dirt and a few small burns. He must have been helping collect all the wounded cadets and crew while she was undergoing surgery.

She was on major pain meds and was thoroughly confused. "What?"

"I was...I pulled you out of that rubble pile," he said. "If I didn't you may have…"

Raven's hand went instinctively over the thin hospital blanket, pressing her fingers against her leg just above her knee. She couldn't feel a goddamned thing. "Oh." She briefly remembered someone dragging her and so much pain that she passed out.

"So, I'm sorry that I did this to you." And then he left. She hadn't even gotten his name until half a year later when she was assigned to his Jaeger, her leg encased in a large exoskeleton brace.

In the present, Raven took John's hand and held it between her two palms. "I don't think you're worthless. If it helps. And you did totally kick that Kaiju's ass."

John resisted the compliment for half a second before he smiled and gave her a kiss. "You ever thought of becoming a Ranger? Before you got into the program?" he asked, the ice cream forgotten. He shifted on the bed and gently pulled her left leg over his lap. By the end of the day, her meds tended to start wearing off and the pain started to seep back in. All of which she'd painstakingly laid out for him after they decided to start dating.

"Not really," Raven said, scooting herself a little bit away from the wall to ease up the pressure on her hip. His hands ran across her leg in a mild massage, which was….well it was pretty damn intimate. Before now, only Dr. Griffin and Raven herself had ever taken a direct interest in caring for her injury. "I was always into mechanics. I never wanted to do anything else. I don't think I'd've made a good pilot anyway."

The thing about Raven's leg was that yeah, she could move it thanks to the brace, but from the knee down she had no feeling. Her thigh was strong enough to do the heavy lifting, but she started losing feeling just above the knee. Without the brace, she had to physically move her leg with her hands. She could stand, putting most of her weight on her good leg, but it wasn't easy. It made running almost impossible, and the only reason her leg was even still usable was because of the tech here, her strength of will, and the fact that she was always moving. Blood flow was important, and using the muscles even if she couldn't feel it, made sure that she wasn't just hauling around a useless limb. There had been a setback, a few years ago, where the pain got so bad that she almost couldn't handle it.

But then she met Emori and the other woman helped more than she probably knew. Raven had built up her friend group around her filled with strong women: Emori, Echo, Luna, Clarke…That team was down two, but she added John to the mix.

Raven had forgiven John for his part in it, but she wasn't sure he did entirely. Maybe it was good that he was with her now. It wasn't like she'd got thrown off her life path. She was still fixing and building Jaegers, wasn't she? It's where she always wanted to be.

"I don't have a mind for battle strategies."

"They teach us that shit."

"Why the sudden interest? Do you want to Drift with me or something?"

John's hands moved up her leg to her thigh where she could feel at about fifty percent. "I don't think I'm ready for you to know  _that_  much about me."

Raven pressed her lips together to hide a little scowl. "You mean you don't want weird relationship telepathy shit like Bellamy and Clarke?"

"You won't hit me if I say no, right?" he joked. "I think we're better off getting to know each other the old fashioned way."

"For once, I have no arguments," she said with a shrug. "In other news, I'm exhausted. Spoon me?"

He laughed but nodded, sliding off the mattress so she could climb toward the pillows and collapse.

"Oh, and the ice cream! Put it in the freezer for me?" Raven said hastily with a big grin that she hoped made up for her last minute request.

A minute later, with the remainder of the pint in the mini fridge's freezer and the lights out, John put his arm around Raven and pulled her back against his front and settled down into the mattress. They may have exchanged a few more words, but they were both so tired that sleep overcame them quickly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clarke hit the mat hard, but rolled with it. Quite literally, she rolled to her left to avoid the staff that came down where her head had been a minute ago. Sweat glistened on her shoulders and arms and chest, sticking her hair into clumps where it touched her face.

She was on her feet a few seconds later, grabbing for the staff she'd let slip out of her grasp just a moment before. Twisting around just in time, she blocked the next shot and flashed a grin at Bellamy. The sounds of the wood hitting each other filled the room until he got his arms around her shoulders, pulling her flush against his chest.

"Call it a draw?" he asked, hand wrapped around both of their staffs and keeping her from wriggling away.

"If we must," Clarke said, panting from the exertion.

Just then, there was a slow clap from the training room entrance. They simultaneously turned to see who it was. Octavia stood there, hair pulled back, dressed in athletic wear. Her co-pilot, Gaia Trikru stood next to her. They were both young, their first kill being Scunner just four months ago.

"Are we interrupting?" Octavia asked as she and Gaia walked forward.

Clarke glanced at Bellamy and raised her eyebrows in a way that said 'obviously'. She leaned against her staff and shrugged a shoulder. "We were just finishing up," she said, speaking for Bellamy. She highly doubted that he'd want to stick around.

"That's too bad," Octavia said, placing her hand on her hip. "I'd like to see what my big brother's made of."

Clarke thought that was a decidedly bad idea, but Bellamy was already speaking. "Sure, why not?"

Octavia walked forward, her muscles taunt and ready to spring. Against her better judgement, Clarke handed over her staff and stepped off the mats. Octavia's co-pilot slid to a halt next to her. Like Octavia, she was young, with big wide eyes but her hair was cropped short to her skull and dyed white.

"This isn't going to end well," Gaia murmured, arms crossed.

Clarke couldn't agree more. "It definitely isn't the best way to work through their problems." She nibbled on her lower lip as the siblings squared off and Octavia attacked first, Bellamy blocking the shot with a loud  _crack_.

"I think it's a good way," Gaia countered. "But only if they discuss things afterward."

"They won't."

"No. I don't think Octavia would listen," Gaia said softly.

Clarke tried not to wince as the siblings danced around each other, the room filled with the sharp sounds of blocked attacks and the occasional body hitting a mat. They didn't even exchange words the whole time, which made Clarke anxious, the muscles between her shoulders growing stiff with the desire to break things up.

Gaia stood watchfully at her side, exuding cool confidence and an unshakable demeanor. She must have counteracted Octavia's rage whenever they were linked in a Jaeger.

Bellamy took a staff hit to the face. Clarke gasped just a little because whenever they sparred it was never to injure but to keep themselves in sync. Bellamy reacted quickly, sweeping Octavia's legs out from under her and putting the end of his bostaff over her heart.

"Enough," he said, his voice quiet but final. After a couple tense moments, he stepped back, tossing the staff to the mat and walking off. Clarke followed, grabbing his arm and checking his face. There wasn't any blood, but he'd have a bruise.

They traded few words before exiting the training room, leaving Gaia to slowly walk to the mat and help Octavia to her feet.

"You okay?" Clarke asked, picking her pace up to match his. She hooked her hand around the crook of his arm to slow him down.

"Fine," he said shortly. They walked in tense silence for a full minute. "Why couldn't we have gone to Peru?"

Clarke sighed, pushing some of her hair behind her ear. "I don't know." She had no inspiring speeches or more helpful words to offer.

"She blames me for something I had nothing to do with!" He stopped short and she twisted around to face him. " _I_  don't blame her and she was there the whole time."

"I think maybe she blames you because she can't blame herself. I don't know if she's...capable of taking responsibility," Clarke replied honestly. She'd been in Bellamy's memories. Clarke knew Octavia nearly as well as he did. "At least, not yet. But the world keeps changing, and maybe she will too."

He looked ready to argue, but finally he got ahold of himself and let out the tension in his shoulders. He brought a hand to her face and she leaned into his touch. "I hope you're right," he said after a beat.

Clarke nodded, placing her hand over his heart, which was still beating furiously. "Me too."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"And this is Raven, your tech go-to guru," Emori finished off her tour to the two new Luna Echo pilots.

Raven turned around, her long hair swishing over her shoulder dramatically. "Hey," she said, waving with the tablet in her hand, a smile on her face. She hated seeing any of her Jaegers sit unused, but Luna Echo still held a bittersweet memory attached. Three and a half months since Echo's death may have seemed like a short time, but during a war, it was eons. Marshal Jaha was on her ass to get pilots in the seats.

"Zoe Monroe," the shorter, auburn haired woman introduced, hesitating between a salute and a handshake.

"John Mbege," her co-pilot replied, giving her a sloppy salute reminiscent of Murphy.

"Another John," Raven rolled her eyes. "Who decided half the men in the world all needed the same name?"

"No idea," Ranger Mbege replied with a shrug, not taking offense. "I'm just here to pilot."

Raven nodded in respect. "If you want to follow me, we'll take a look from up here. I need to be there when we test the Drift test with Monty Green." She started walking and they followed. "Have you met Monty yet? He's a character. Anyway, he's the one in your ear while you're in the Conn-Pod, but we're having some difficulties fixing up Luna Echo since her last pilots." Raven was surprised at how steady she kept her voice.

"We heard about that," Mbege said.

Ranger Monroe nodded. "We were told you knew the pilots well."

"I do," Raven said, not bothering with present or past tense. Echo was gone, but Luna was still out there. Hopefully living it up inland, far from the Kaiju attack zones. "But I also love this machine and I hope that she takes down more Kaiju. You better help me take care of her." She glanced over her shoulder with a stern look.

Both young Rangers nodded emphatically. "Yes, ma'am," they said simultaneously.

She smirked and pulled herself up to the first rung of the catwalk ladder. A jolt of pain shot from her hip to her lower back, but she didn't lose her grip, only hissed and clenched her teeth together, blinking away the instant sheen of water over her eyes.

Once on the catwalk, the pain subsided and she walked forward, knowing her way around the catwalks as if they were the back of her hand. "We lost a lot of Jaegers after Scunner attacked Peru and Sydney," she explained. "We had a full hanger of twenty, and now we're down to thirteen. Hong Kong is the only other base with space for twenty Jaegers, but I don't think they're fully stocked anymore."

"Didn't Sydney lose all their Jaegers?" Monroe asked.

Raven shook her head. "They had two left. Peru was completely taken out. Hong Kong and us...we sent some down there." She sighed. It was hard, this war. She'd gotten used to the life inside the Thunderdome. It was easy and routine. This newest hit had seriously changed things. Her friends were across the globe, her mentor too.

"Wow," Mbege whispered out. "Didn't realize it was that intense."

Raven just waved them on to follow, stopping at a platform level with what would be Luna Echo's armpits if she was a human instead of a machine. She had a pretty green paint job, a sharp looking Conn-Pod, and a weapons system that included not only missiles from her chest, but a sword from each wrist.

"Here she is," Raven said proudly, sweeping out a hand as if displaying a work of art. And, in Raven's eyes, it was just that. She just hoped that these two Rangers would be able to live up to the legend that was Luna Echo. The Jaeger, under its epithetic Rangers, had taken down or helped to take down nearly a dozen Kaiju in ten years.

Monroe and Mbege had gotten a tour through the Thunderdome, so they'd obviously seen the remaining Jaegers in the hangar at a glance, but they still had wide eyes and slacked jaws when presented with the prospect of their own Jaeger.

"Wow," Zoe said, gripping the railing and leaning forward. It was dizzying to try to see all the way down to the three pronged feet of Luna Echo.

"Incredible," John muttered out.

Raven couldn't help but smile a little smugly. She leaned her weight against the railing to take weight off her bad leg. "She's in top shape. A Mark II but you better not complain."

Both Rangers held up their hands. "No, no way," they both said, shaking their heads.

"Good," Raven said with a little laugh. "Now go get suited up. We need to test the neural bridge and you get first hand experience in getting all set up for a battle."

Luckily they'd been paying attention on their way there and made their meandering way back to the tech hub. Raven stayed on the catwalk, trying not to erase the memory of Echo and Luna from her mind, but cementing it like a memorium.

With a nod, she headed back toward the hub. She was going to run scans and diagnostics up until the minute the neural bridge connected, and even beyond. She stayed in the tech hub until she had just ten minutes to make it to LOCCENT. With a comm in her ear and Emori on the other end, the Head Technician joined Monty Green. She had two tablets sitting on her hands and headed straight toward him.

"Ready?" he asked, glancing up at her. Many mugs of empty coffee littered the control board.

"As ready as we'll ever be," Raven said, touching the comm. "Emori? Can you hear me?"

"Loud and clear," Emori replied. "I've got all eyes on the equipment. We'll be able to shut down Luna Echo remotely if something happens."

"Good. Hopefully it won't come to that." For a fleeting moment, Raven wished she had her mentor, Sinclair, working with her on this. But it passed as she recalled that it was  _she_  who got the Head Tech position. She could do this.

Monty checked the machines all along the panel in front of him. He flicked some switches and Raven balanced one of the tablets on an empty corner of the control panel. The screen showed flowing lines and ongoing scans. A small popup box came up when the Conn-Pod successfully locked into place on the Jaeger's shoulders.

"Conn-Pod's secure," Raven said just as Emori said the same thing in her ear.

Monty nodded, twisting in his seat to read something printing on paper—actual paper, what was this, the nineteen-nineties?—and then he turned to the microphone. "Rangers Monroe and Mbege, good to have you on board," he said.

Raven put all her weight on her good hip and held the second tablet in hand. Her eyes flicked between that and the holographic screen in front of Monty.

The Rangers' comms must have been going directly into Monty's comm because Raven couldn't hear a thing.

"This is just to test the waters. When the link starts, resist the memories and just focus on the Drift. The Drift is silence," he explained. It was the same speech he always gave to new pilots. Raven wondered if it was something in a manual somewhere, but it didn't really matter. She focused on her screens.

"We're keeping you here in the hangar, so don't get too crazy," he continued, flicking a few more switches. "Starting the neural link in fifteen seconds." His dark eyes were focused intensely on the screen in front of him. It showed two brain scans, along with a lot of other stuff along the edges. Raven didn't understand all of it, just like Monty probably wouldn't be able to make heads or tails of half the stuff on her tablets.

"Three, two, one." Monty hit the big red button—yep it was a big red button—and said, "Neural link engaged."

Raven held her breath. This would be make or break for Luna Echo. If the machine rejected any pilots, she'd be tossed into the Graveyard and Raven wasn't ready to have that happen.

Her eyes jumped from the results on her tablet about the mech, and the projection in front of Monty. Seconds felt like hours until the two brains on the projection lined up.

"How are you guys feeling?" Monty asked through the microphone.

Raven tore her eyes from the brightly colored projection to the tablet in hand. Her eyes took in all of the information quickly. What looked like gibberish to someone else looked like fully formed ideas and information to her.

Monty continued to wheel around in his chair, hitting buttons and watching the screen. "You're a little out of sync, Mbege, just take some breaths and—You're both slipping out of sync!"

"Shit," Emori hissed into Raven's ear.

The edge of the tablet bit into Raven's hand as she clutched it hard. Monty leaped forward and hit a button to unlink the pilots. LOCCENT was eerily quiet.

"What happened?" Emori asked.

Raven shook her head even though Emori couldn't see. "This isn't gonna work," she said softly. She looked over at Monty, who finished telling the pilots to get out of their drivesuits. "Tell them I'm sorry I couldn't fix it."

He sighed and looked over at her as she gathered up her tablets. "Raven, it's not your fault."

Raven just shook her head more fiercely and left, walking as fast as she could. Twenty minutes later, she was sitting in her room, tablets tossed on the other side of her bed, a contraband bottle of whiskey between her hands.

"Thought I'd find you here," John said, walking inside and slowly closing the door behind him. "You okay there, Reyes?"

She cradled the glass bottle in her palms. "I couldn't fix it," she said, shaking her head, her eyes low, focused on the floor.

He came and sat down next to her. "This wasn't your fault, Raven."

"No?" She let out a dry laugh and straightened her back, looking over at him. "I'm the Head Technician. I should be able to fix any of the Jaegers across the globe but I can't...Luna Echo is gone. She's gonna be thrown into a Graveyard and used for parts."

"It wasn't you. It's the machine."

"What's the difference?"

John ran a hand through his hair. "You'd know, if you were a Ranger. Getting back into Alpha was like...coming home or some shit. Like the Jaeger knew who I was. It's freaky, but it happens. And Luna Echo was manned by the same pilots for a decade."

Raven swallowed and clutched the whiskey harder.

"You did everything you could," he said, putting a hand on her knee.

"Then why do I just want to drink away how it makes me feel? I feel like a  _failure_. I've never felt so small in my goddamn life."

"Have a drink. What's the big deal?"

She took in a deep breath. "I don't mind drinking. I do it to let loose a couple times a year, y'know. It's hard to be part of any war without a drink. But...I've never let myself drink when I was feeling sad or angry or like  _this_. Not even when my leg got really bad a few years ago and I tried to…" She cut herself off. "Growing up, it was just me and my mom and her string of douchebag boyfriends. She drank, a lot. She was angry with the world, with herself. She took it out on me sometimes. But she was my  _mom_ , you know? I just took all of it."

Big fat tears fell from her eyes as she blinked. She hastily wiped her cheeks with the cuff of her shirt. "I don't want to be like that ever," she said finally.

She'd never told anyone that before. Not Clarke or Bellamy, not Emori, not Luna or Echo.

It was both a relief, and made her want to crumple up inside at the same time. The fact that she was even  _thinking_  about drinking to drown her negative emotions made her want to pump the breaks and get out of there. But she was burying herself so deep that she was stuck, whiskey bottle in her hands.

John wasn't saying anything. His eyes were unfocused across the room, though she could see the tiniest emotional ticks in his face.

"My dad died after an accident when I was younger," he said finally, his voice deadpan, emotions creeping up around the sides the longer his spoke. "Mom started drinking pretty heavily after that. I probably should have done something but I found her half dead in a pile of her own vomit one night. The last thing she ever said to me was that she blamed me for my dad dying." He paused, blinking away a sheen across his eyes and sucking his lips between his teeth for a second to get control of his face.

"I get it," he said finally, turning to face her. "I've been a disappointment since day one, so I get it. I also know that it's not my fault my dad died; I was just a kid. So believe me when I say you're not a failure. Not because of this."

There was no cure-all fix for this but there was a tug in her heart and soul. She wasn't the only one who messed up, who had a fucked up family history, or who blamed herself for everything.

"Murphy," she said softly, reaching beside her to put the bottle down on top of her mini-fridge. She didn't know what else to say, so she didn't. She took his hand in her hands and rested her forehead against his, eyes closed.

His hands brushed over her arms from elbow to shoulder and down her ribs to her hips. He said nothing either, but he kissed her after a minute or two. She kissed him back, one hand with fingers pressed against the back of his neck, the other clutching the front of his shirt. She lay back and pulled him with her, forcing him to prop up on an elbow and lean down to kiss her.

Pausing for a breath, he moved his hand from her side to her face, brushing his thumb against her jaw. "I'm sorry," he said, voice all low and husky. "I shouldn't have laid all that out on you."

"No, I'm glad you told me." She paused, fingertips playing with the slightly worn collar of his white t-shirt. "I just don't want to think about anything else right now."

She leaned up to kiss him, smothering any more conversation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You'd think that after eight years of it, Clarke wouldn't wake up with her heart lurching in her chest when the Kaiju alarm went off, blasting through the whole station and each individual room. She sat bolt upright, hand clasped over her chest, the thing sheet pooling around her hips.

Even though their room had two separate beds, the two Jaeger pilots tended to squish themselves together on a single bed anyway.

Beside her, Bellamy groaned and flung his arm in the air, letting it against Clarke's bare back. "You good?" he asked, his eyes not even open.

"Fine," Clarke nodded, controlling her breathing. Her eyes slid over to the screen in their room. It was blaring with the alarm but not with the orders for them to suit up. Of course, any Kaiju attack meant that every Jeager station had to be on alert in case backup was needed or the Kaiju changed course mid-ocean.

"Come on," she prodded, slipping out of bed and tugging at Bellamy's hand, now tossed across the mattress. "It just came through, it could be headed anywhere."

Clarke hooked on her bra and pulled on her pants and shirt. "Bellamy,  _come on_ ," she said, hitting the side of the mattress.

His eyes flew open and he nodded. "Yup, I'm up," he mumbled, swinging his legs off the mattress and onto the cold concrete floor.

He dressed quickly as Clarke tugged on socks and laced up her boots. She ran her fingers through her bluntly shorn hair and slipped into the dark blue jacket with Arken Sky's name and logo embossed on the back. She tossed Bellamy his as he was dragging his hands through unruly, shaggy curls, but he caught the jacket one handed.

The alarm went on for three full minutes before it stopped, leaving Clarke's ears ringing. They bumped into a lot of people on the way to the LOCCENT. All the active Rangers were expected to be there, ready to jump in a Jaeger in a minute's notice.

The projection on the big screen on the far side of the room showed various muted news channels warning people to prepare all along the Asian coast. In the middle was a sonar image of the Kaiju on the screen, moving closer and closer to the continent.

"So far, we know it is a Category IV, unnamed until it gets closer to the coast," Marshal Indra Trikru, Gaia's mother, said, standing proud in blue at the front of the room. "For the time being, it appears to be heading northwest, but we'll be on call until it's been defeated. Stay awake, stay sharp."

Clarke chewed on the inside of her cheek and crossed her arms as the room fell into murmurs. She saw the red jackets belonging to the Red Queen crew and pilots, as well as the brown and gold jackets belonging to the Ton DC Rangers. Blue Ramona's crew had bright blue jackets, and Soncha Kapa with their dusty white uniforms stood out in the crowds.

Waiting was the hardest part. Kaiju tended to ignore small islands and populations, instead, going for the big coastal cities. Sydney was quite south, and after reading up on Marshal Trikru, Clarke had a feeling she'd set up either Ton DC or Red Queen and send them to Brisbane for precaution in an hour or two.

"Who do you think?" Octavia said, talking to Gaia, but close enough to hear. "Arken Sky is dead weight down here. She should just station them up there permanently."

Clarke scowled and glanced up at Bellamy, who had also heard. His jaw was clenched and Clarke reached over to grab his arm as he went to move forward.

"Excuse me." Tall and broad shouldered, Roan Azgeda was not only a seasoned pilot on his second co-pilot, but he was Echo's cousin, something that Clarke had found out pretty quickly once they arrived. He was the most welcoming of the Syndey based Jaeger pilots. Currently, he stepped up to Octavia and Gaia, who had her lips pursed in disagreement with her co-pilot.

Octavia whipped around and arched an eyebrow. "Excuse  _you_."

"Arken Sky's pilots may be from the US but they're here now. You should respect them. They've taken down more Kaiju than you have and that experience makes them much more than dead weight."

"I said what I said."

"And what you say just proves that you're a young, cocky pilot. You have a lot to learn," Roan finished, a note of finality to his words.

Octavia glared at him and grabbed Gaia's arm, dragging her across the room. Clarke walked forward, one eye on Bellamy in case he had the idea to go after his sister. "Thank you," she told Roan. "You didn't have to do that."

He shook his head and put a hand up. "No need. I was young and cocky once—"

"Once?" Lexa Heda, his co-pilot, scoffed. She stood at Roan's side with her long hair pulled back and her arms crossed, an amused smile on her face.

" _Once_ ," he repeated with a little smile. "But this war has changed and we all need to step up to the plate."

"You shot Octavia right down," Bellamy pointed out.

Roan shrugged. "A little humility goes a long way."

"Well, thanks, again," Clarke said.

Roan nodded and he set his eyes on Bellamy. "Family is never easy. But keep on trying." He bowed his head, patted Bellamy's shoulder and walked around both of them. Lexa offered Clarke a small smile before following her co-pilot.

Clarke slipped her arm around Bellamy's back, leaning against him so he'd have something to distract himself with.

"Spinejackal, fast in water," Marshal Trikru said five minutes later to the room of pilots. "Hong Kong has sent out a three Jaeger team. We can all stay put."

With that, they all dispersed, though many went directly to find screens to watch the news, and some stayed in LOCCENT to watch the fight via the PPDC sonar feed.

Like always, Clarke didn't like watching a fight. She and Bellamy walked toward the mess hall and scrounged up some lukewarm breakfast. The caf was nearly empty, so they joined the only table where people were eating.

"I don't like to watch the fights," Clarke confessed. She and Bell sat opposite Roan and Lexa and a random smattering of crew and tech workers. "Makes me nervous."

"I used to watch them. Every one," Roan said, shoveling scrambled eggs into his mouth. "'Course they used to happen just two a year back then."

Clarke nodded. The war had been going on for somehow, nearly twenty years and he'd been right earlier: there was something changing. Kaiju no longer showed up two times a year, but every five or six weeks. They were also coming through stronger, as Scunner proved.

"Now…it's too much," he said with a shake of his head.

Clarke bit down on her bottom lip. She wanted to ask if he'd watched all of Echo's fights. When they'd first arrived, he'd been the first to greet them with warm handshakes and a friendly face. Amid the repairs, he showed them around and Clarke had put together that he was related to Echo because of the shared last name. She'd apologized, the guilt still weighing on her shoulders about Echo's last fight. He had friendly conversation with both her and Bellamy when they found themselves around each other. But that had been about it.

Octavia had brashly and loudly told them how his first co-pilot, Anya Trigeda, had died from a aneurysm while in a fight. She was disrespectful about it, as if it had been Roan's doing. Instead, she should have been impressed and recognized his strength as a Ranger as he proceeded to bring the Jaeger to shore alone; not an easy feat.

"I just hope they're able to take Spinejackal down outside the miracle mile," Bellamy commented. The miracle mile was, ironically, the ten mile buffer between ocean and coastline. If a Kaiju got into those ten miles, it was more likely to make landfall.

"It's right there in Hong Kong," Lexa said, "They've got enough Jaegers and pilots to send out reinforcements if the original three need assistance. It should be okay."

Roan lifted his metal cup. The other pilots at the table did too. "Here's to hoping," he said, as they hit cups together and drank in good spirits for the Jaegers fighting up north.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raven forced herself not to look as if she'd been crying this morning. Because she had, but she didn't want people to  _know_. She'd missed the fight with Spinejackal, having spent her day drowning herself in the tuneup of Alpha Mountain, late into the evening. The beast almost made it to Hong Kong, and had taken down three Jaegers before getting killed by a fourth sent in for support. According to Emori, two of the Jaegers were completely destroyed, their Rangers' killed, while the third was damaged but could still fight once repaired.

The whole ordeal made Raven freak out even more than usual about the prospect of a Kaiju coming close to California and John being sent out to fight. Her fighting spirit wasn't gone, but she was a little disheartened about Luna Echo. It took a lot of convincing from Murphy that it wasn't her fault, and she did everything she could; some things just can't be helped. So she quite literally threw herself into her work, making sure her remaining Jaegers were at peak performance, from the tiniest screw, to the largest metal chestpieces.

There were more Mark IIs than any other version of Jaeger. It had been after the success of the first Jaegers, but then the failing health of the pilots had resulted in double the Jaeger's made with more health measures. Luna Echo was one of the first made, working ten years in the field.

And today it was being decommissioned.

Her footsteps took her toward the Kwoon, where she could hear the clacking of practice staffs. There were no doors to the Kwoon; which probably helped despurse the smell of all the sweaty bodies constantly using the space. Rounding the corner, she poked her head around and saw a number of people, crew and Rangers alike, chatting along the walls, and two pairs of Rangers on the mats.

Maya Vie was petite, with black hair and square shoulders. From conversations over meals and casual meetings in hallways, Raven knew that she came from a small family in Chicago, loved art and history, and was pretty ferocious for a tiny young woman.

Raven walked into the Kwoon just as Maya flipped Murphy onto his back on the mat. They weren't using sparring staffs, they were just doing some good old fashioned martial arts stuff. Raven didn't know specifics; she'd never been a fighter, and with her leg...it wasn't impossible, but she spent more time crawling around in a machine than she ever would need self defense. She literally lived at the Thunderdome, only stepping foot outside when she was with friends.

"Wow," she said, slow clapping. "So impressive. I feel  _so_  safe walking around at night with you John."

He scrambled to his feet. "Ha, ha, yeah, have your fun." He waved his hand for her to continue.

"I think I may hire Maya to be my new bodyguard," Raven continued, amused grin on her face. "Never know when I'll need someone to take Miller down a peg."

"Hey now, I handled that fine last time," John insisted, patting the air with his palms. He walked over and grabbed a towel from a neat stack of them over by the wall. He wiped his face and hung it around his neck.

"We ended up in the Marshal's office," Raven countered, crossing her arms and arching an eyebrow. "I think Maya could come up with a more... _skilled_  way to take him down."

"Oh yeah," Maya said, wiping her hands on a towel and swooping down to pick up a waterbottle from the floor. "I'd use my feminine wiles."

"I think he's gay," John said shortly.

"I'd use my ability to get everyone to like me, become his best friend and then squash his hopes and dreams," Maya quickly recovered, recounting a new and exciting plan.

John shrugged, looking a little impressed. "That could actually work."

"Emotional crippling I am fine with," Raven said, a half hearted attempt at a joke at her own expense. Which always made things awkward but Maya just paused and then rolled with it.

Maya pointed at Raven. "Okay then, just tell me when."

The mechanic smiled at her as John came over. "I'll keep you posted!" They walked out of the Kwoon and he put his arm around her shoulders. "Ugh, gross," she mumbled, even though he was hardly sweaty. They must not have been working for too long before she got there.

"You love it," John said with a grin.

She rolled her eyes but put her arm around his back anyway. They slowly made their way through the halls with uneven steps. "Thanks for coming along," she said. It was almost like she was putting down a beloved pet or something, except it meant more to her than just losing something she cared about.

"Of course," he said, squeezing her shoulders. "This is important to you. And you're important to me."

"Awww, babe, you  _care_  about me," Raven said in a light voice, a smile toying with her lips. She paused, hand on his stomach to balance herself and leaned up for a quick kiss.

Murphy just rolled his eyes as they continued walking toward the tech hub. Raven's mood sombered the closer they got and she was thankful that he was with her. She clenched his shirt in her fist as they took the elevator ride up to the hub.

There were fewer workers today, and Raven didn't know if it had to do with the time of day or if they were all avoiding her. With a little frown, she let go of John and he followed behind as she walked through the obstacle course that made up the hub and out toward where the platform leading to the catwalks began.

Someone was already standing there.

"Luna?" Raven breathed out in disbelief. The Ranger turned, a smile tinged in sadness spreading across her face. Raven walked forward and threw her arms around her friend. It had been months since she'd seen or heard from Luna. She squeezed her eyes shut, overcome with emotions. Once she stepped back, she spotted Emori smiling in the corner, and twisted to look over her shoulder.

John just raised his eyebrows and his hands in defense. "I had nothing to do with this," he said, which probably meant he did.

Raven turned back to Luna, who was still clasping her shoulders. "What are you doing there? I mean, I'm so happy to see you, but…"

"Emori told me that Luna Echo is getting decommissioned," Luna replied, glancing over at Emori, who came over. Luna threw an arm around the shorter woman's shoulders. "I wanted to be able to say goodbye."

Tears filled Raven's eyes and she hastily rubbed them away. "I wasn't able to fix her."

Luna nodded, squeezing Raven's shoulder. "Her heart broke when mine did." Which was surprisingly similiar to what John had told her about the unexplainable connection between Ranger and Jaeger.

"I think you three should do this together," John said, reminding them that he was there.

Raven stepped away and back over to him. "You don't have to go."

"This is personal. I'd just be imposing."

"Maybe a little," she confessed.

He cocked his head and then pulled her in for a short embrace. "I'll be in the caf when you're done. Come find me?"

"Okay." She paused for a moment, giving him a kiss and then stepped back. He squeezed her hand and then turned to walk the way they'd come.

"Raven?" Luna said.

Raven took a deep breath and then turned around. "Okay. Marshal Jaha will be pissed if we put this off any longer." She met Emori's eyes and Emori climbed up onto the catwalk. Raven followed, once again momentarily overcome with a few jolts of pain, but she blamed the tears in her eyes on the decommission when Luna asked.

They weren't transporting the Jaeger to a Graveyard yet, but they were disabling all systems and removing her power core. The three women walked as close to the metal giant as they could. Just two weeks ago Raven had stood here with the new Rangers, before it all went to hell.

"You ready?" Raven asked, looking over at Luna. Emori stood on the other side of the Ranger, her hands gripping the railing.

"Are  _you_?" Emori asked, leaning forward so she could see Raven.

Raven had gotten all of her crying out this morning. She nodded and turned her attention to Luna. She stood tall and still, her hair less wild than Raven remembered, a somber acceptance on her face.

Raven reached over and squeezed Luna's hand. In return, Luna put an arm around Raven and Emori's shoulders, linking the three women together.

Raven took a deep breath, blinking away tears again. She thought she'd be out of them by now, but they kept prickling the back of her eyes. She lifted the comm from her jacket pocket and hooked it over her ear before pressing the pressure button to open the channel.

"Okay," she said, testing her voice. "Take Luna Echo offline."

The constant supply of energy created a din that one didn't really realized until it was gone. The various tech crew shut down the systems, and the air around the women grew steadily more silent. The lights went out in the Conn-Pod, the machine seemed to give one last sigh of breath before falling still.

"Ai keryon gyon op, ai keryon g' breik au," Emori said quietly, from a song the BuenaKai sang whenever a Kaiju breached and reached a city. It was surprisingly fitting. "My soul moves on, my body is freed."

Raven reached behind Luna's back and found Emori's hand. She gave it a squeeze and they stood there in silent reflection as the mechanical arms pried open the chestpiece and removed the most expensive part of a Jaeger: the power core.

"May we meet again," Luna said softly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arken Sky shuddered with the contact, Insurrector tackling them from the side. Clarke gritted her teeth as the screens in front of her and Bellamy came alive with warnings of damage.

"Son of a bitch," Bellamy hissed, reaching forward to stab his gloved hand at the screen, trying to reroute power.

"We need a little help here," Clarke said over the open line.

Insurrector reared its massive head and let out a roar, spewing acidic saliva as it did so.

"Got your six, Arken Sky," Roan's voice came through the comms as Clarke and Bellamy scrambled to get their Jaeger back onto her feet.

Ton DC's golden shine flashed through the viewport and sent a long blade through the shoulder of the Kaiju.

"Weapons back online," the Sydney station's version of Monty Green, Roma Pierce, said into the Conn-Pod of Arken Sky. "Don't take your time getting up."

The strain felt more than usual as the pilots moved in unison, getting to Arken Sky's feet. The Jaeger felt stiff, but they had to fight. They'd already made it to the city, and buildings were being destroyed all around them. One crumbled under Ton DC as Insurrector shook the Mark III off it like a dog shook off a fly.

Arken Sky started a running charge, the plasma cannon quickly building itself out of the left hand as they did so. Wounded, the Kaiju backed into a tall skyscraper and the cannon blast ripped through the shoulder Ton DC previously slashed, completely disconnecting the arm from the body.

The Kaiju was big and bulky, falling forward into another building as its arm fell away. Clarke and Bellamy gave a single triumphant yell.

"It can't move as fast without that arm!" Clarke yelled as she and Bellamy moved their Jaeger back. Ton DC, with its faster speeds and lighter weapons, attacked with its secondary weapon, a hand made of huge spinning disks, cut into sharp spikes. It cut through the thick flesh of Insurrector's neck.

The Kaiju growled and pushed itself up to its hind legs, momentarily blocking out the sun.

"Oh shit," Clarke said, just before it swung, the huge remaining arm knocking Ton DC out of the way. The Jaeger flew back a hundred yards.

"Plasma cannon's not recharged yet," Bellamy said, pushing buttons once again.

Clarke joined him, prepping the missiles nestled in the front of Arken Sky's chest. "We just need to topple it and then blast the skull," she said, keeping an eye on the Kaiju. Blue blood coated the streets and leaked from the missing arm.

"Launch now or we're toast!" Bellamy said, squeezing his hand. Clarke did the same. Only one of their three missiles released, and did nothing more than annoy Insurrector.

Seconds passed like hours as the Kaiju turned its head and swung it low, one of its large, strong horns piercing the Conn-Pod on Clarke's side.

She let out a scream as the systems freaked, and pain ran through her whole body. She tasted blood but didn't know if she'd just bit her tongue or actually got hurt.

"Clarke!" Bellamy's voice sounded far away, but she wouldn't let herself fall to her knees.

With her head ringing, she forced her legs to move, to get them away.

"Red Queen's almost there, guys, just hold on, we're sending an evac soon as Insurrector's down," Roma's voice came through the Conn-Pod. Clarke barely heard the woman's voice, but they moved away. Above them, the heavy sounds of multiple helicopters filled the air and the ground trembled as Red Queen was dropped right there in Brisbane.

For the first time in a long time, Bellamy let out a sigh of relief at his sister's voice coming through the comms: "I've got you, big brother," Octavia said, her voice serious and battle ready.

Clarke blinked slowly in her drivesuit.

"Clarke? Can you hear me?" Bellamy said, ready to get out of his restraints and check on her. They were faced away from the fight and could only hear the weapons deployment and screams of Insurrector.

"I'm okay," Clarke said with effort, feeling blood drip down the side of her face and from her nose. She forced them to keep walking until she couldn't anymore.

Bellamy  _felt_  it and set the Jaeger to standby. Arken Sky stayed standing as he hastily disconnected, wrenching both of them out of the Pons and into their own minds. Clarke slid to the ground, her suit also disconnected.

Breathing heavy, she gasped for air when Bellamy pulled her helmet off. She was shaking and her hair was plastered against her head from sweat and blood.

"Hey, hey," he said, taking her hand in his gloved hands. "You're gonna be okay."

Everything seemed far away, like she was falling down a black hole and the light and sound kept getting farther and farther away. She heard Bellamy's voice and then nothing else.

When she gained consciousness again, everything was bright and loud and cloudy. She reached out with a hand and it made contact with a familiar palm, one she knew as well as her own.

Everything came rushing back quickly: her hearing, her sight, her sense of touch. She squinted against bright infirmary lights, and tried to focus her eyes on Bellamy, who held her hand in his. But it was hard to focus.

"Hey, princess," he said, his voice wobbly. She couldn't tell if it was his voice or her ears.

"Hey," she replied softly. "What happened?"

He stroked her wrist gently with his other hand. "Concussion, broken ribs. Neural strain, they don't know how bad." His voice wobbled again. He stood up and brushed his hand over her hair, pressing his lips to her forehead. "You scared me."

"Sorry," she said, smiling weakly. "Is it just me or are these Kaiju getting stronger and bigger?"

He laughed just a tiny bit. "It's not just you." Sitting back down, he cupped her hand in his. "It's only been five weeks since Spinejackal."

Clarke frowned. Thinking hurt almost as much as trying to focus her vision. "What're we gonna do, Bell?"

"You're going to get better."

Just then, the door to the room opened. Clarke's heart leapt at the thought of seeing her mom, before she realized that they weren't at the Thunderdome.

"Good, you're awake," Dr. Nyko said, taking up a lot of space in the small room. His long hair was effectively pulled back from his face. His hands dwarfed the tablet he was holding. "We're gonna try to keep you awake until we can do more tests on your brain, okay, Ranger Griffin."

"Okay," she said, feeling small on the gurney and resisting the urge to nod her head, knowing it would just hurt her head more.

Nyko moved his attention to Bellamy. "He hasn't left your side."

Clarke squeezed Bellamy's hand, though her grip was weak.

"We still need to give you a check, Ranger Blake. The blowback could have affected you, too," the doctor explained in a no-nonsense tone.

"I'm not leaving, Clarke," Bellamy said firmly.

Dr. Nyko lifted his hand and pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering, " _Rangers_ ," under his breath.

If Clarke had been in her right mind, she would have probably apologized and forced Bellamy to go get checked out, but she wasn't in her right mind, so she only buried herself in the feeling of having Bellamy at her side and let the doctor figure out what to do next.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Raven walked into the infirmary room with a more pronounced limp than she'd had in a few years. She pulled herself up on the end of the gurney with a wince and started untying her boots.

Dr. Abby Griffin, Clarke's mom, walked in, tablet in hand. "Good morning, Raven," she said, giving the mechanic a warm smile. "How are you doing today?"

Raven's boots fell to the ground loudly. "Good," she said, the automatic response. "How are  _you_?"

"I'm doing well, thank you." Abby swiped from her tablet to the larger screens in front of her. Some of Raven's information was displayed there in charts and lines. "Lay back for me, we're doing a full scan."

Raven nodded, her hands shaking a little as she tugged up her loose pant leg and reached for her brace. There were small buckles on the inner part of her leg that held the brace in place. She held her breath as she stretched forward to reach them.

She must not have been all that great at hiding her discomfort, because the doctor set down the tablet and moved toward Raven. "I'll get that. Lay back."

Raven did so, pulling herself a bit farther up by her elbows and then laying down, her feet propped up on the end of the hospital bed. She lay her hands over her stomach and tried to focus on her breathing as Abby slid off the brace and set it aside.

"You know the drill, lay still." Abby walked to the screens and the full body scanner, which was currently hovering just over Raven's head, lit up with dull lights. "Did you take your medication this morning?"

"Yes," Raven said, trying not to move.

"Does it usually take long to start working?"

Raven swallowed hard. "Not too long."

Abby checked something on the screen as the scanner got closer to Raven's hips. "Your pulse is high, and don't think I didn't see you limping in here. Are you feeling more pain than usual?"

She really didn't want to answer. The last time she'd started feeling pain this badly had nearly led her doing something stupid and unforgivable. The question lay in the air until the machine got to her feet and beeped before making another, faster, sweep back to her head.

"A bit more," she said finally, the fight in her voice gone.

Abby nodded, once again checking the screens as the new scans came through. "When did it start?"

"I don't know."

"How's your sexual activity?"

Raven snorted. "Doc, c'mon."

"Exactly, I'm a doctor. Your doctor. I need to know everything you're doing that could impact your legs or your hips. And sex puts a strain on both."

Raven pushed herself up on her elbows. "Depends on how you do it," she muttered. "Okay yeah, I'm sort of dating someone. But we're taking it easy. I even wear my brace."

Abby seemed satisfied with the information and turned to her tablet. "Has anything else changed recently?"

" _Recently_? Not so much. I mean. It's been sort of stressful since Sinclair, Bellamy and Clarke were transferred. And losing Luna Echo. And I miss Luna and Echo. But I've got John….and Emori is really helping pick up my slack."

"Have you been in too much pain to work?"

Raven blinked and sat up, shifting a little on the gurney. "Sometimes."

"You should have come to me sooner. You may have started becoming resilient to the medication or…"

Raven leaned forward. "Or?"

"Or it could be something more serious." Abby stood in front of her and looked her right in the eyes. "I'm going to go over your scans with Dr. Jackson and I'll be back. Stay here. Doctor's orders."

Raven didn't like the sound of that, but she nodded. Abby left in a swish of a white lab coat. Raven took a deep breath and bit down on the bottom lip as she scooted down to the end of the bed. Her legs dangled off the edge childishly, but all she could feel was pain.

It snuck up on her. She'd been fine, and then...she wasn't. She'd been hiding it for a little while now. Weeks maybe months. They were all starting to blend together.

Truth be told, she'd been to scared to come in earlier, even though she knew logically that she should have. She kept telling herself that it would pass and she'd be fine. But she wasn't. Abby wouldn't go consult with someone else unless something was wrong.

It didn't take long for a cold sweat to break out across her and all she wanted was to be far from here, wrench on hand, facing a Jaeger and a problem. Instead, she was stuck here in this room, her body scan wiped off the screen so she had nothing to distract herself with. Abby had put her leg brace out of her reach, probably not expecting Raven to leave the room.

"It'll be fine," Raven told herself. "Except now you're talking to yourself out loud."

Hands gripping the edge of the gurney, Raven squeezed her eyes shut and let her chin fall toward her chest. The pain seeped up her leg like a slow moving lava, creeping up her thigh toward her pelvis, toying with the base of her spine, which was why it hurt so goddamn much.

"Not again, not again. I can't do this again," she said, barely audible to her own ears.

Finally, the door opened and Raven let out a shaky breath as her eyes settled on Abby. The older woman held the tablet in hand and gave her a sad smile that she knew well. Raven's stomach dropped and she wanted to curl up and stick her head under the sand.

"Raven," Abby said as softly as she could. "It looks like your old injury has been aggravated to the point of creating more damage. It could have been done by something as simple as falling down. If you can remember anything that may have happened in the past few months?"

Raven could feel the sweat soaking her shirt and tried to keep her breathing even. A fall? Raven wasn't clumsy. She bit down her bottom lip and thought back to everything that had changed over the past few months. And then it hit her. "Son of a bitch," she said, eyes focused on a floor tile.

"Raven?"

She shook her head and looked at her doctor. "I...I got shoved to the ground the day before Marshal Jaha made his announcement about Peru and Sydney. I didn't think anything about it. I landed mostly on my arm but it was concrete..."

Abby pressed her lips together and consulted her tablet.

Raven felt a cold stone grow in her stomach as she waited.

The doctor stepped forward and put a hand on Raven's shoulder, saying nothing about the sweatiness of her skin. "Something like that could have reopened some parts of your injury that are fragile."

Chills ran through her body and she took in a short gasp.

"With the elevated pain levels, I'd say that something may have gotten torn, but I'd have to take a more detailed scan to get the best results."

She gulped, the air around her swimming. "What does it mean?"

"It means...if we do nothing, you could lose your leg."

"No," she mouthed, recoiling back.

"And if you want to stop that from happening, we'll need to operate again. We've come a long way in the past few years. There are things we can try."

"I can't lose my leg, Abby," Raven pleaded, eyes filling and spilling over. "I can't. I can't."

Abby squeezed her shoulder. "I need to schedule you for more scans. We'll have to operate soon."

 _Another_  operation. Hadn't she been through enough? Raven squeezed her eyes shut and covered her face with her hands. That's what they said last time.  _This should fix everything_. And yet here she was.

She was angry with Ranger Miller, furious in the way that felt soul consuming, for doing this to her. And she felt fragile and broken about having to go through this all again.

"Raven? You have to tell me what you want me to do. We need your consent before we move forward." Abby's voice sounded so far away.

Raven dropped her hands, her face a twisted mess of grief and pain. "Will it fix it?"

"You'll always need a brace. And I don't know for sure until we do more scans."

She sucked in a long, stuttering breath. "Do the damn tests. I  _can't_  lose my leg."

Abby paused but then nodded. "I'll fit you in in the next day or two. I'll give you something stronger for the pain."

Raven nodded, not bothering to try to wipe her face. Her limited amount of makeup was probably smeared all down her cheeks.

The doctor returned with a small clear bottle and a syringe. "I'll give you instructions for this. Have your boyfriend or Emori help with this, okay?"

Numb, Raven nodded as Abby took measurement of the medication and then moved to put the shot in the muscle and fat sitting at her left hip. She didn't even feel the needle, and didn't try to move until Abby stepped back.

"No, no. You're in a lot of pain, you should stay here until that kicks in. Lay back."

She wanted to protest, but instead, she let Abby help put her brace back on and she curled up on the bed on her side, tears leaking onto the crinkly paper laid over the vinyl.

Swaying between pain and anger, Raven's back was to the door when it cracked open twenty minutes later. The pain was starting to ebb a little, but she didn't want to move. What was the point?

"Raven?" John's voice cut straight through her mind's bullshit.

"Oh God," Raven said, quickly scrubbing her face with her hands and trying to sit up. "Of course she called you."

He came around the other side of the table as she sat up, legs dangling. Concern filled his face. He lifted a hand to her face, covered in sweat and tears and mascara. "The doc filled me in," he said, tilting his head to the side. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Raven's throat burned. "Because I knew you'd blame yourself," she admitted, eyes shining again.

He wanted to argue, she could see it, but he didn't. Instead, he swallowed it down. "You still should have told me. This is a big deal."

"I know," she whispered. "I don't know if I can do it again."

He didn't ask for more information, he only heaved an exasperated sigh at her own stubbornness and leaned his forehead against hers for a few seconds. "Would it be totally mortifying if I carried you back to your room?" he asked finally.

"A little," she said, already on the verge of tears again. "But I really don't give a shit right now."

Lips pressed into a line, John nodded, hooking one arm under her knees and the other around her back, under her arms. He wasn't the biggest guy on the planet, but he lifted her with ease.

"I got your meds already," he told her as they edged out of the room. Barely anyone commented or noticed as they moved among the rest of the PPDC crew in the corridors.

Raven said nothing, her hand resting above his heart, feeling the steady beat under her fingertips. Someone grabbed the door to her bunk for them so he didn't put her down until they were inside. As soon as she hit the mattress, she curled up again, this time burying her face in her pillow. She allowed herself to cry again, muffling the hiccupy sobs that slipped out.

The mattress dipped and she felt John's hand resting on her back, but he didn't say anything. She wasn't ready to talk about it yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clarke frowned at the far away sounds of...chaos. Her brain was still hazy, and she woke slowly. It had been just a few days since Insurrector destroyed Brisbane, finally taken down by Ton DC and Red Queen.

Bellamy wasn't in her room, which was a big surprise. Dr. Nyko barely got him out of the room to do a physical and psych check, having to nearly drag him from her side. She slowly sat up, her head still feeling off, a ringing in her ears.

She swung her legs off the side of the bed and got to her feet. She hadn't done much standing lately, and it took her limbs a moment to remember their job. She changed into the folded sweatpants and cotton shirt sitting on the chair, wincing at the pain in her ribs, which were wrapped with white bandages.

Barefoot, she walked into the hall as people rushed around. There were angry curses and arguments left and right and she couldn't make sense of any of them. Leaving the room was probably a bad idea, as her world swam all around her.

Someone caught her in their arms.

Bellamy.

"Clarke, what're you doing up?" he asked, his face and voice laced with concern.

Clarke shook her head slowly. "What's going on? What happened?"

"Not here." He glanced around and then guided her back to her room. Once inside, he closed the door firmly and she sat on the edge of the bed, her muscles needing the support.

"What's up?" she asked again, reaching for the cup and pitcher of water on the small table next to the bed.

"The PPDC is finished," Bellamy said, running a hand through his curly hair.

She frowned, taking a sip of the water. "What do you mean?"

"Got an announcement this morning. With the loss of so many Jaegers, the UN's pulling funding from the Jaeger Program to put toward that dumbass seawall construction."

"You're serious."

"Yeah. As of now, all of the stations are being shut down except for the Hong Kong Shatterdome. All remaining Jaegers and pilots are being relocated there."

Her frown deepened. "This doesn't make any sense. With more and more Kaiju coming through, we should be getting  _more_  funding and recruits to handle the threats."

Bellamy shrugged, anger highlighting his movements. "Yeah, that'd make more sense. But money is important to people. More than their lives, I guess."

Clarke furrowed her eyebrows and waved him closer. He stepped toward her and she pulled him forward, hugging his hips with her thighs and knees. "They're gonna let the Jaegers keep fighting? The remaining ones?"

"I guess. I heard talk of independent parties putting money into the Jaeger Program to keep us running."

She put her hands on his shoulders. "Then we'll keep fighting."

"Clarke...you got hurt."

"Yeah. But I'm still here. I'm gonna keep fighting. Will you fight with me?"

Bellamy took a deep breath and met her gaze. "Of course."

She gave him a little smile and rested her head against his chest, wrapping her arms loosely around his torso. "And just think, if we're all being sent to Hong Kong, we'll see our friends again. Raven, Emori, Murphy."

"I wouldn't call Murphy a friend…"

Clarke laughed. "Ow, ow," she said, sucking in a breath. "Ribs."

"Shit sorry," he said, stepping back a little to give her some space.

"Nothing like a little pain to remind you that you're still alive," Clarke said simply, echoing something Raven had said to her years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The infirmary was already bare bones and it had only been ten days since the announcement of the UN pulling out from the PPDC. She still couldn't wrap her head around it, but she kept telling herself that at least she was able to have her surgery before they forced her to move across the globe.

Raven had crutches and she really wasn't supposed to be moving around as much as she was, but she didn't really have a choice. Emori had already helped her pack up her whole room and put her duffle bag and her toothbrush in John's bunk.

The pain she was dealing with now was a different kind of pain than before, but it was more bearable. Thank god Abby said the operation went well and they were able to do some massive repairs. Raven hadn't missed the undertone warning that she'd still have to be fighting this for the rest of her life.

"Raven, over here," Dr. Griffin called her over. They'd already wrapped up most of the equipment, the rooms were all off limits. Raven hated the crutches, but she used them anyway to pull herself over to the open space and bare metal gurney that looked more like an autopsy table than a bed.

"You're moving like ants here," Raven commented. Abby looked tired, but Raven was sure she was happy to be transferring to the same place as her daughter once again. Even though it was evident that not everyone was heading to Hong Kong; crew members were being disbursed to other positions around the world, in the smaller factions of what was left of the PPDC.

Abby nodded and motioned Raven to the corner where she could pull a curtain around them for privacy. "The world still revolves around money, even after everything," the doctor said, helping Raven off with her jacket and her shirt. There was bruising on her back but the area around the small cuts used for the operation were doing well and healing faster than such a surgery would have a decade before. When you lived in a world where keeping Rangers in top shape was a priority, the medical leaps were almost as grand as the massive robots built to keep them safe.

"Are you doing your exercises?" Abby asked, pressing here and there and double checking her work.

"Yep," Raven said. The exercises sucked and hurt a bunch, but she wasn't going to jeopardize her chances at keeping her leg if she could help it.

Abby nodded. "Good."

"Still don't know how I'm gonna sit on a plane for like fourteen hours, but," Raven shrugged.

Abby sighed and crouched down. "Use the bed to steady yourself for me." Raven obliged and steeled herself for some pain as Abby hooked her hands under Raven's boot and forced her knee and hip to bend. She let her leg down gently and then stood, dusting off her hands. "You shouldn't be sitting for more than a few hours a day for another week, two would be better."

Raven pulled on her shirt, putting all her weight on her right leg. "The plane ticket is in a week. If you really want me to, Luna put herself back on the grid long enough for me to ask if I could stay at her place until I'm healed."

They both knew it would be a few months before she was healed fully, but her surgery had been only a week ago. She needed more time to rest.

"I know you want to travel with Ranger Murphy but I would highly recommend staying with Luna a bit longer. It'll only help," Abby insisted, helping Raven on with her jacket.

Raven heaved a sigh. "Yeah, okay. It'll be good to see Luna again before we're an ocean apart."

Abby squeezed her shoulder. "And onto the good news, things seem to be healing nicely. Just keep taking it easy, take your medication, and I want you to use the crutches for another month."

Raven made a face. "A month?"

"Yes," the doctor said, pulling aside the curtain to reveal the nearly stripped bare main room of the infirmary wing. "But, I'll take a look once we're both in Hong Kong at three weeks and that may change."

Raven smiled and gave Abby an awkward one armed hug while trying to balance on one leg and two crutches. "Thanks, doc," she said before making her slow and steady way back to the living quarters. Emori was a lifesaver, helping make sure the Jaegers were in good shape to make the travel across the Pacific, keeping track of how many crew and tech were coming with them and how many they were losing, as well as fighting for the best to stay. It was a lot of work, and something Raven should have been doing as the Head Technician.

She was going to owe Emori big time. Like, a really expensive bottle of vodka and a girls night filled with glorious street barbeque and three hours of karaoke. Or something like that.

By the time she got back to John's room, all she wanted to do was sit and relax but she knew she couldn't. The door was open a crack and she leaned on her good side and knocked with the end of her crutch. John appeared a moment later, pushing the door out and letting her in.

He had more to pack than most. Three years of messing around with nothing to do made him into quite the pack rat, but Raven was helping him trash most of the unimportant stuff.

"How'd it go?" he asked as she rested her crutches next to the door and leaned against his desk. Her arms tingled from all of her crutch work.

"Okay," Raven shrugged. "Abby wants me to stay an extra week and head over later. I shouldn't be sitting so much right after the surgery."

He let out a short breath through his nose and nodded, tossing another shirt into his duffle bag. Raven's bag already sat in the corner, fully packed. "The flight's gonna suck without you," he said.

"I know. Whatever will you do without my sunny personality?"

"I take that back," he said, glancing over his shoulder at her. "I don't think the plane would have enough room for both our egos."

She stuck her tongue out at him immaturely and played with the bottom hem of her jacket. "I wonder if they'd let us room together," she questioned, tilting her head toward the ceiling.

"You wanna move in together?" There was more surprise in his voice than there probably should have been.

"We already are," she pointed out.

He blinked and looked around. "Huh. Guess you're right."

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. It was incredibly annoying to fit two people in a double sized bed, especially when Raven moved around so much while she slept. John tended to sleep like the dead, though, and so far it was working out. "I think someone said they only have single bunks in Hong Kong. Maybe we'll just be across from one another." Highly unlikely. They usually kept the Rangers generally in the same area, and everyone else shoved in the rooms farthest from the hangar.

"If I get there first, maybe I can pull some strings," he offered.

She grinned in response and glanced down. Out of curiosity, she pulled open the top drawer of the desk. The desk was made of steel, and the shallow drawer was loud and creaky. Her face fell a bit as she reached inside.

"Um, John?"

"Yeah?" He turned from his bed and his eyes made their slow way down to her hands. His face also fell a little bit.

Raven turned the six shot revolver in her hands. Truth be told she'd never actually seen a gun up close. The Jaeger Program wasn't about training police officers, and a handgun against a Kaiju would do about as much damage as a human punch. "Why do you have a gun? How did you even get a gun in here?" Her face screwed up in quick anger and confusion. She glanced back at the drawer and plucked out one of six loose bullets. "And these?"

John left his packing and came to stand in front of her. He was quiet and his face was solemn, which was the only reason Raven wasn't instantly picking a fight with him. "First, I've never used this," he said, taking it out of her hand as if it were made of glass. He let her fidget with the bullet. "Second...I got it somewhere I shouldn't tell you and I snuck it in. I'm sneaky."

Raven pressed her lips together, still uncomfortable with the thought. "Why do you  _need_ a gun? You're in a government building, we're always protected here." She didn't bring up that they weren't protected from Kaiju because that wasn't the point.

"I know, I know." He nodded his head, finally taking his eyes off the gun and meeting her gaze. "I didn't buy it for protection either." He sighed and went to sit on the edge of his mattress, still holding the gun like it was something precious, or something he was scared of.

A volley of bad thoughts were circling around in her head, but she tried to ignore them. She wanted to hear what he had to say and not jump to conclusions.

"I told you about Jasper," he started. Way back before they got together, he'd told her about his first co-pilot, Jasper Jordan. After their fight in Guadalajara, he was transferred up to The Icebox station in Alaska and then he killed himself. It wasn't a happy story. "Okay, so after I took the blame and got stripped of my titles, I was kept in here as a liability. I wasn't allowed anywhere but my room and the mess hall. And I was...hell, Raven, I was a fucking mess.

"I kept myself locked up in here, watching news reruns of the fight, listening to the numbers of dead piling up. It got bad. Because it  _was_  my call to save the boats and not the city." He paused and Raven put the bullet down on the top of the desk, not wanting anything to distract her from what he was saying. "So one day I slipped out of here, went to town, bought a gun and came back here. I watched the news over and over until I couldn't even  _think_  unless it was about the fight and the city and the death toll. And I…"

His eyes rose then, a little glossy, a little tormented still with the weight of his decision. Raven's own eyes prickled with tears and she limped a step or two forward.

"I know what this barrel feels like here," he touched his index finger to his temple, "here," under his chin, "even put it in my mouth at one point."

All the fight went out of her and she shuffled forward to stand in front of him. His name slipped out of her mouth in a whisper.

"But I didn't do it. I don't know why. And then Emori stopped by, of all people." He and Emori had broken up just a little bit before he went on the mission to Guadalajara. "She was pissed at me and wanted some of her stuff that she thought would be here. And it kind of kicked me in the ass." His gaze had fallen to the gun again, but now he tilted his head back and looked up at Raven. "And I kept it. As a reminder, I guess. Or some part of me wasn't sure if I'd want to try again."

Raven shook her head and took his face in her hands. "You better not," she said, her voice a little thick and froggy. She cleared her throat and tried again. "And if you do, you talk to me. And you don't  _keep_  something like this, okay? You don't give yourself the option of going to that dark place again."

He seemed a bit numb in the moment, but he nodded and placed the gun to the side before he buried his face in her stomach and wrapped his arms carefully around her.

Raven tried to steady her breathing and ran her hands over his hair and squeezed her eyes shut. "I love you, John Murphy," she said quietly, feeling him tremble under her hands.

Life really was one tough bitch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Look who I found!" Clarke announced, walking into the cramped and chaotic Hong Kong Shatterdome rec room. The room was mostly filled with Rangers, but Emori and some other tech crew were there as well. Music pumped out of the refurbished jukebox in the corner, the pool table had a line, and the only thing separating this from a bar was a lack of alcohol and smoke filled air.

The blonde Ranger had her arm tossed around Raven's shoulders. Raven's crutches were nowhere in sight, even though she was still supposed to be using them. She decided using Clarke as a crutch was more fun.

Fresh off the flight and the corresponding helicopter ride to the Shatterdome, Raven was exhausted, but all of the familiar faces made up for it. "Looks like the gang's all back together," she exclaimed, her smile wide.

It didn't matter that the only reason they were all together was because the world's leaders stopped believing in them. All that mattered right now was each other.

"About damn time," John said, squeezing through the crowd. "I was getting lonely."

"I know you know how to keep yourself entertained," Raven replied as they met and embraced. His arms wound tightly around her torso, greatly missed for the time they'd been separated by the entire Pacific.

"Booo!" someone said from the crowd and a few other people joined in.

Raven squeezed John tight before barking out a, "Screw  _all_  of you," followed by laughter.

"Not me, I hope," Emori said, appearing at Raven's side. "I may be the only one here rooting for you guys."

"Hey!" Clarke chirped in, joining Bellamy, who tossed his arm around her shoulders and shook his head a little.

Raven rolled her eyes and hugged Emori too. She kept her arm around Emori's shoulders, tilting her head to rest against her best friend's wild dark hair kept in place by a bandana. She didn't know all the faces in the room personally, but Raven had spent a week with Luna in which she went through all the remaining Jaegers and their pilots so she recognized faces.

"What, no hug for your favorite mentor?"

Raven's eyes went wide and she twisted around. Sinclair, the man who had taken her under his wing and brought her into the PPDC was there. His hair was a little greyer, but his face was just as kind as she remembered. She grinned and engulfed him in her version of a bear hug. "I just didn't want John to get jealous," she chuckled, stepping back. "It's good to see you."

"You too, Raven," Sinclair replied, squeezing her shoulders and giving her a smile that reminded her just how much she missed him. He was like family to her, the closest thing to a dad she ever had.

Before she started crying, she turned around and found her way to John's side. She was tired from the flight and melted to his side as he put his arm around her and walked her toward friendly faces.

"Hey, Bellamy," Raven said, tilting her head on John's shoulder. "I'd hug you but I'd probably fall over. That flight is no joke."

"Me too, I hope," Maya Vie said, popping up from behind. She gave Raven a warm smile. "Happy you made it."

Emori nodded in agreement, grabbing Raven's free hand and squeezing. Around them, the room resumed its previous bustle, with pool balls clinking against one another, and a rowdy poker game going on. Sinclair scooted his way over to the Rangers and technicians.

"So this is really it," he said, crossing one arm and clasping his opposing elbow. "All that's left of the PPDC."

Raven grimaced. "Have you heard what's going to happen? I'm late to the party, so feel free to fill me in."

Everyone exchanged looks of varying degrees of disagreement, annoyance and frustration.

"We're still fighting, if that's what you're worried about," John assured her first.

"I'm not worried. I just want to know where we stand," Raven said.

"We've got funding," Clarke offered. "There's still billionaires and millionaires in the world who believe in us so they're helping fund the Shatterdome and Jaeger upkeep."

"What about all the Marshals?" Raven asked. If all eight stations were suddenly joined, that meant they had eight Marshals vying for the same position.

Sinclair answered. "Some were transferred to other military operations or dropped into lower positions with no warning."

"Who's here now?"

"Jaha and Trikru," Maya said.

Raven arched her eyebrows. "They kicked out the head of the Shatterdome?"

Emori squeezed Raven's hand. "Yeah. It happened just as the first of us arrived. There was a big scene."

"Damn, I missed all the drama?" Raven frowned and it really wasn't fake. Not that she was cool with the PPDC being stripped down to bare bones, but there was nothing they could do about it. So she moved on. And life was crazy enough with giant monsters attacking cities, so sometimes grounding herself in stupid, petty human problems was the best thing for her.

"Raven." The voice behind her was indistinguishable from any other, so she glanced over her shoulder expecting to see one of her crew members.

And technically he was, but Nathan Miller was not who she wanted to see right now. Her good mood soured and John had to actually hold her back, hooking his hands around her elbows.

"You son of a bitch!" she hissed out, lurching forward.

"Whoa, whoa, babe," John tried to calm her down. Keyword: tried.

She did pause though, whipping around. "You're seriously  _stopping_  me right now?"

"I'm just as surprised as you," he replied.

She narrowed her eyes and returned her fury to Miller, who stood there, hands up in defense. He also had what appeared to be a swollen lip, eye and cheek, which she hadn't seen at first glance.

"Look, I just...I'm sorry," he said, stepping away from her.

She wanted so badly to hit him for what inadvertently happened to her after that stupid shoving match back in California. It was blind blame, and she didn't even feel guilty about it. "I almost lost my leg because of you," she said. She stopped struggling against Murphy's grip but he didn't let go of her. "And you think I'm just gonna accept your apology and pretend we're friends?"

"No." Miller shook his head. "I didn't realize what happened." His eyes shifted to someone behind her for a moment before returning to Raven. "Words aren't enough but I wanted to apologize anyway."

Raven kept her glare at full intensity. "I really hope you can find a new tech to work on your Jaeger." It was as close to a threat as she was going to get out.

He nodded and backed away, as if from a wild animal he was trying to escape from. Once he was gone, Raven whirled around, the intensity still in her gaze, but the hatred gone. "Who beat him up?" she asked, jerking her thumb over her shoulder.

Her eyes instantly went to Murphy, who shrugged. "It wasn't me this time."

Raven's eyes slid to Emori, who just laughed and crossed her arms. "I'm a pacifist."

"Who helps create super weapons, uh-huh," Raven shook her head. She looked at Maya, who just shrugged her shoulders, surprise on her face about Miller getting roughed up.

"It was me," Clarke offered up, raising her hand as if they were in school.

"Seriously?" Raven raised her eyebrows.

"John told us the details when we all got here and...look, it was my fight and you got in the way. And then Miller walked into my fist a lot," she shrugged.

The group was quiet for three seconds before Raven laughed, the tension leaving her body. "God, I've missed you," she said, hobbling across the space and draping her arms around Clarke.

The Ranger hugged her and patted her back. "Thank god all that shit was going down with the Marshals when it happened or I'd definitely been benched."

"It ain't fun at the bottom," Murphy handed out his wisdom as he unlatched his girlfriend from Clarke and slid his arm around her, taking it upon himself to be a pseudocrutch.

Clarke just shrugged and tucked freshly shorn hair behind her ear. A small smile played on her face. "I got your back," she said, her eyes on the mechanic.

"I took Anchor Polis, by the way," Sinclair said, nodding towards Raven. "And on that note...I'm still trying to get adjusted to the time zone. I'll see you tomorrow, Raven." He gave her another warm smile and left the group as the poker game erupted in either celebration or anger. No one could tell which.

Once again, they stood in a small group amid the chaos of the rest of the room.

"This feels like the ending of Grease, doesn't it?" Bellamy commented, slinging his arm across Clarke's shoulders and dragging her closer.

Raven laughed and John rolled his eyes.

"I actually saw that movie," Emori commented. She'd missed out in a lot of pop culture during her childhood.

"Who's gonna start singing first?" Clarke teased.

"Oh no," Raven said, with little real dread behind her words. She was too tired to muster up even more energy. "You shouldn't have asked."

"Hold on, can it be any song?" John asked as the entire group groaned and talked over one another.

Raven squeezed her arm around John's back and didn't bother hiding her grin as everyone argued about song choices. She met Clarke's bright blue eyes for a moment, silent communication passing between both women. One filled with emotional understanding and relief to finally be on the same continent once again.

Even though the world was quite literally crumbling around their shoulders, it didn't matter as long as they were surrounded by friends.


End file.
